The oddest reading experience--a rambling, unreliable narrator reflecting on (internally? externally?) disturbing events--that I didn't enjoy. I can aThe oddest reading experience--a rambling, unreliable narrator reflecting on (internally? externally?) disturbing events--that I didn't enjoy. I can appreciate James' craft and use of ambiguity, which disallow the reader from forming any conclusions or sympathy for his characters. The story can be interpreted through countless lenses: sexual obsession, psychological projection, the unspeakable expressed through language, the dissolving of the self; a quick stroll through r/literature will provide many more.
On (single / not single) motherhood and (returning to / escaping one's) origins. I will miss reading these very real and very broken people.On (single / not single) motherhood and (returning to / escaping one's) origins. I will miss reading these very real and very broken people....more
1) I am a fan of immigrant stories. They help me peel back another layer of my own narrative every time I read one. 2) There is something satisfying, 1) I am a fan of immigrant stories. They help me peel back another layer of my own narrative every time I read one. 2) There is something satisfying, complete about the Bildungsroman. Much of the tenderness of the novel comes from its structure. 3) Lahiri's writing is blunt, almost formulaic. Personally not my favourite style, but very readable and doesn't detract from the story....more
Powerful and insightful. I hear an adult and a child simultaneously in Angelou's writing; an incredible feat.Powerful and insightful. I hear an adult and a child simultaneously in Angelou's writing; an incredible feat....more
A thousand pages later! I enjoyed certain parts of Don Quixote quite a lot (the drollery, as the translator* likes to put it; the chapters that develoA thousand pages later! I enjoyed certain parts of Don Quixote quite a lot (the drollery, as the translator* likes to put it; the chapters that develop the overarching storyline; the elaborate tricks played on poor DQ in Part 2) and others not as much (the set of characters who all serve the same purpose for the plot and then disappear, never to be heard from again; Sancho's inconsistency in characterisation, although I suppose this is illustrative of his simplicity).
Something I loved was how Cervantes played with narrative and self-reference. We read the writing of author A who references and comments on author B, from whom A obtained DQ's story. Then, Part 2 has its characters reference and comment on the publication of Part 1 and a fake Part 2 (that Cervantes insults often).
Definitely worth a read; easy to pick up and put down, as adjacent chapters are often unrelated.
A quote I liked on writing:
[To] write histories, or books of any kind, there is need of great judgment and a ripe understanding. To give expression to humour, and write in a strain of graceful pleasantry, is the gift of great geniuses. The cleverest character in comedy is the clown, for he who would make people take him for a fool, must not be one.
*I read Rutherford's translation for the first third and Ormsby's for the remaining because travel forced me to switch from a physical to an electronic copy. The translations certainly have different flavours....more
Borges writes art: precise; about complexity, language, and purpose.
My favourites are Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius; The Library of Babel; and The SecretBorges writes art: precise; about complexity, language, and purpose.
My favourites are Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius; The Library of Babel; and The Secret Miracle. Others I enjoyed, and others I did not really care for. Giving this collection 5 stars just for the three stories I've listed.
In the vestibule there is a mirror, which faithfully duplicates appearances. Men often infer from this mirror that the Library is not infinite--if it were, what need would there be for that illusory replication? I prefer to dream that burnished surfaces are a figuration and promise of the infinite. (The Library of Babel)
Tiptoeing and lonely; on family and waywardness. I finished the novel with a glass of wine and cried (quite a bit oops).
She went to the porch to watch
Tiptoeing and lonely; on family and waywardness. I finished the novel with a glass of wine and cried (quite a bit oops).
She went to the porch to watch him walk away down the road. He was too thin and his clothes were weary, weary. There was nothing of youth about him, only the transient vigor of a man acting on a decision he refused to reconsider or regret. No, there might have been some remnant of the old aplomb. Who would bother to be kind to him? A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their face. Ah, Jack.
On sexuality, family, and the hypocrisy of a Matthew 7:15-20 person; a beautiful, heavy novel. Instead of trying to describe how Baldwin writes, I proOn sexuality, family, and the hypocrisy of a Matthew 7:15-20 person; a beautiful, heavy novel. Instead of trying to describe how Baldwin writes, I provide a quote:
Oh, but his thoughts were evil--but to-night he did not care. Somewhere, in all this whirlwind, in the darkness of his heart, in the storm--was something--something he must find. He could not pray. His mind was like the sea itself: troubled, and too deep for the bravest man's descent, throwing up now and again, for the naked eye to wonder at, treasure and debris long forgotten on the bottom--bones and jewels, fantastic shells, jelly that had once been flesh, pearls that had once been eyes. And he was at the mercy of this sea, hanging there with darkness all around him.
Playing god while in possession of a self-established sense of worth and a gasping conscience. Somewhat of a painful narrator to read, but what an excPlaying god while in possession of a self-established sense of worth and a gasping conscience. Somewhat of a painful narrator to read, but what an excellent rendering of the swaying of human thought. Quotations:
But do you know, gentlemen, what was the chief point about my spite? Why, the whole point, the real sting of it lay in the fact that continually, even in the moment of the acutest spleen, I was inwardly conscious with shame that I was not only not a spiteful but not even an embittered man, that I was simply scaring sparrows at random and amusing myself by it. (11)
Well, in short, actions that all, perhaps, commit; but which, as though purposely, occurred to me at the very time when I was most conscious that they ought not to be committed. The more conscious I was of goodness and of all that was ‘sublime and beautiful,’ the more deeply I sank into my mire and the more ready I was to sink in it altogether. But the chief point was that all this was, as it were, not accidental in me, but as though it were bound to be so. It was as though it were my most normal condition, and not in the least disease or depravity, so that at least all desire in me to struggle against it passed. (14)
Does not man, perhaps, love something besides well-being? Perhaps he is just as fond of suffering? Perhaps suffering is just as great a benefit to him as well-being? Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering, and that is a fact. There is no need to appeal to universal history to prove that; only ask yourself, if you are a man and have lived at all. (42)
I want peace; yes, I'd sell the whole world for a farthing, straight off, so long as I was left in peace. Is the world to go to pot, or am I to go without my tea? I say that the world may go to pot for me so long as I always get my tea. (133)...more
Gorgeous and sashaying, a story that is so sad my heart is in tiny pieces. I don't quite know how to describe this book so I'll just leave it at that Gorgeous and sashaying, a story that is so sad my heart is in tiny pieces. I don't quite know how to describe this book so I'll just leave it at that hmm....more
Large and tender and delirious. Describes gorgeously the volatile / inconsistent dialogue that constitutes the self; the terrible / necessary freedom Large and tender and delirious. Describes gorgeously the volatile / inconsistent dialogue that constitutes the self; the terrible / necessary freedom of humankind; the grasping for / discarding of the divine. There are several passages I read over and over so they could sink in slowly, and I found this a much more fluent read compared to other huge books like Don Quixote and In Search of Lost Time, which require more patience. We are in luck, because Dostoevsky was prolific, and the reading is endless.
I read the Pevear & Volokhonsky translation after the internet told me to. (But is it time to learn Russian?)...more
A contemplation on friendship and growing old. Woolf emotes in ways I feel but cannot describe in words. A thoughtful read in a style that takes a bitA contemplation on friendship and growing old. Woolf emotes in ways I feel but cannot describe in words. A thoughtful read in a style that takes a bit to adjust to but rolls well through the brain once you acclimate.
A quotation: Life is pleasant. Life is good. The mere process of life is satisfactory.. Something always has to be done next. Tuesday follows Monday; Wednesday Tuesday. Each spreads the same ripple of wellbeing, repeats the same curve of rhythm; covers fresh sand with a chill or ebbs a little slackly without. So the being grows rings; identity becomes robust. What was fiery and furtive like a fling of grain cast into the air and blown hither and thither by wild gusts of life from every quarter is now methodical and orderly and flung with a purpose--so it seems....more
Márquez writes atmosphere exceedingly well. Read in 'preparation' for upcoming trip to Colombia.Márquez writes atmosphere exceedingly well. Read in 'preparation' for upcoming trip to Colombia....more
Precisely the type of writing that I love: ornate, incisive, and digging at the core of something. Requires a patient reader.
On stories:
See how [the n
Precisely the type of writing that I love: ornate, incisive, and digging at the core of something. Requires a patient reader.
On stories:
See how [the novelist] provokes in us within one hour all possible happinesses and all possible unhappinesses just a few of which we would spend years of our lives coming to know and the most intense of which would never be revealed to us because the slowness with which they occur prevents us from perceiving them (thus our heart changes, in life, and it is the worst pain; but we know it only through reading, through our imagination: in reality it changes, as certain natural phenomena occur, slowly enough so that, if we are able to observe successively each of its different states, in return we are spared the actual sensation of change). (87)
music:
He knew that even the memory of the piano falsified still further the perspective in which he saw the elements of the music, that the field open to the musician is not a miserable scale of seven notes, but an immeasurable keyboard still almost entirely unknown on which, here and there only, separated by shadows thick and unexplored, a few of the millions of keys of tenderness, of passion, of courage, of serenity which compose it, each as different from the others as one universe from another universe, have been found by a few great artists who do us the service, by awakening in us something corresponding to the theme they have discovered, of showing us what richness, what variety, is hidden unbeknownst to us within that great unpenetrated and disheartening darkness of our soul which we take for emptiness and nothingness. (362-363)
and memory:
The places we have known do not belong solely to the world of space in which we situate them for our greater convenience. They were only a thin slice among contiguous impressions which formed our life at that time; the memory of a certain image is but regret for a certain moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fleeting, alas, as the years. (444)
Beautiful writing for a raw, chilling narrative. Personally found that the sexual explicitness distracted me from (what I perceived to be) the purposeBeautiful writing for a raw, chilling narrative. Personally found that the sexual explicitness distracted me from (what I perceived to be) the purpose of the novel, but the purpose does shine through the distraction anyway.
It is a book that makes you sad about the past and current and probably perpetuated state of the world. But also, having this reaction is a good thing....more