T.S. Eliot: reflects that it might have come out better in limericks
Four Quartets For an Anglican, time is too vast; A roPistache, by Sebastian Faulks
T.S. Eliot: reflects that it might have come out better in limericks
Four Quartets For an Anglican, time is too vast; A rose or a vision can't last: It's a moment in history, Our grace and our mystery, And the future is lost in the past.
pistache, pis-tash n a friendly spoof or parody of another's work. [ Deriv uncertain. Possibly a cross between pastiche and p**stake.]
Includes Franz Kafka: tries to keep up with the world of Mr Gates George Orwell: confronts the real 1984 Virginia Woolf: goes to a hen-party W.B. Yeats: reports on the 2006 Ryder Cup at Kildair The Brontës: place some lonely hearts ads Lewis Carroll: moves Alice into the 1960s Thomas Hardy: is sent to cover the big match James Joyce: makes a best man's speech D.H. Lawrence: writes a brochure for 18-30 holidays Dylan Thomas: writes a cereal advertisement Enid Blyton: see the Famous Five grown up Graham Greene: tries a story through a woman's eyes
Lots more . . .
This is not a book for the faint-hearted or the downstairs lavatory. It is a book for the bedside table of someone you cannot live without....more
My highlight read of 2024. The Mahler Erasures, John Kinsella
'Haven't you wondered why the imperialists look to Homer for the answers in peace and warMy highlight read of 2024. The Mahler Erasures, John Kinsella
'Haven't you wondered why the imperialists look to Homer for the answers in peace and war and war and war. Their peace is a desire in the maintaining of the spoils.' P.210 P.88 - 'What happens on the battlefield never stays on the battlefield.' P.94 - 'We all take advantage one way or another. That's just too easy. I have no respect for crime, Harold insisted.'
P. 95 - 'The Comalco Act - 1957. Aboriginal reserve status revoked. The red cliffs of prosperity. And now, I read, the Australian government wants to be a top-ten arms exporter.' *The Comalco Act of 1957 revoked the reserve status, giving the company 5,760 sq km (2,270 sq mi) of Aboriginal reserve land on the west coast of the Peninsula and 5,135 sq km (1,933 sq mi) on the east coast of Aboriginal owned (though not reserve) land. Mining commenced in 1960. *The Law Insider
P.107. Death's violin is the adult playing, but so is the rest. But in the 'out of tune' I could follow the line to my future, to living in the shadows, to being lost in the expat lies of creativity, of getting away from unbelonging. To unbelong in the hoodwink of sleighbells, of strings in harmony.' P. - 205 'Sharp noises bothered him. Out of tune instruments bothered him, but he said that they made the best music. 'In tune' is not creative.'
In tune is not creative. I like that.
Symphony No. 5 'I have loved, I know it now, said Harold. I could love again, and know it. Be aware as I am loving. No mistaking the beginnings of death though. Love fertilised by grief. Forced into the march of care, our vulnerability and reliance on others caring for us. The slightest lapse can make it tough. But good enough is good enough.'
Symphony No. 7 'Night. The barn owl is watching. The barn owl in the fens. The barn owl on the edge of the Victoria Plains, wheatbelt Western Australia. The barn owl outside imperialist language. The barn owl disturbed in its scanning by the heavy thud of woofers across the valley. The claimants are partying loud.'
P.110 - 'I will move on. On and on. I do not have an iphone. I do not have gel technology in my shoes. I do not know who won the football last night. And to keep Mahler in my head I must keep listening to the records, keep the grooves spiralling towards their centres. Cosmology.' P. 217 - 'The poets I have most respected are aware of what's beneath. They write with their hands, literally their hands. And now I am chasing the diminishing dot in my head - a singularity, I hope I hope. Thank you. All.'...more
First published in 1926. And has been drawn from ever since. The Great Gatsby This is a good start. Chapter 1 "In my younger and more vulnerable years myFirst published in 1926. And has been drawn from ever since. The Great Gatsby This is a good start. Chapter 1 "In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. 'Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,' he told me, 'just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.' "
And this is a good ending. "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made . . . " "And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further . . . And one fine morning - So we beat on, boats against the current, born back ceaselessly into the past."...more
I wondered while reading Amerika if America would have changed Franz Kafka's writing had he travelled there himself. He did a convincing job using traI wondered while reading Amerika if America would have changed Franz Kafka's writing had he travelled there himself. He did a convincing job using travel brochures for reference. Still, this was a frustrating book. Karl, thwarted at every turn. I recommend reading American Road Trip: The 1935 Travelogue of Two Soviet Writers; Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov. Also: America Day by Day, by Simone de Beauvoir, 'A great living document of America in the Forties'.
If only Kafka could disembark in New York in 2025....more
To quote Andrew Marr from the Observer, Making up for lost time: "Filming Proust is a little like painting a late Beethoven quartet, or trying to makeTo quote Andrew Marr from the Observer, Making up for lost time: "Filming Proust is a little like painting a late Beethoven quartet, or trying to make Westminster Cathedral into a ballet: heroic, but also silly." "He thought words - some 1.3 million of them - were enough." Andrew Marr on Proust.
'Montjouvain', a country house based on a real one, about twenty minutes walk from the town, called Mirougrain. 'And, for all the elaborate prose and setting, there is a simple and universal message from the book - the agonising realisation that time really does pass, and all our lives are lost, and can be regained in art but nowhere else.' Andrew Marr
At some point in reading The Way by Swann's, I can see the inspiration from J.K. Huysmanns, and Theophile Gautier before that, but it was Proust who turned on the lights for many writers to follow, maybe even James Joyce. Certainly Virginia Woolf....more
Misunderstanding in Moscow, written in the 1960s but not published in French until 1992, six years after her death. Set in summer in the mid 1960s, SiMisunderstanding in Moscow, written in the 1960s but not published in French until 1992, six years after her death. Set in summer in the mid 1960s, Simone de Beauvoir wrote this novella in her fifties. A simple story told plainly of a long married bourgeois sixty-year-old French couple on holiday in Moscow. Deceptively simple story that has depth. Confronting approaching old age, that takes a different environment with a different language and culture to reevaluate oneself and marriage partner objectively, both of them....more
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