A Momentary Taste of Being

And for my own commonplace book: “To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda or even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery; it means to live in such a way that  one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist .” -- Cardinal Emmanuel Célestin Suhard , Archbishop of Paris 1940-1949

"To Build a Fire," Jack London If you haven't already encountered it, I would consider this one of your "must read" stories.  Like several others I may make of point of later, this is a staple of the literary reader.  Much has stemmed from it and it is just a darned good story.

Any Catholics out there have any? I haven't figured mine out yet.  But it appears that Pope Benedict has a new volume in his Jesus books--perhaps that will make a good, if somewhat daunting read.

"Why I Avoid Both the Catholic Left and Right" Thanks to Dylan for this link from Facebook. Advice for everyone who engages in theological discussion: My response had basically been: If the discussions frustrate you, DON’T ENGAGE IN THEM. Figure out what you’re for, not what you’re against. The road to Christ is lonely, long, and almost unbelievably rocky, and though it takes place in community, we have to also walk it alone, often in great anguish and distress, often for decades if not our whole lives. Figure out what you are for--not what you're against.  The statement is such a basic Christian attitude, or at least should be.  Christianity would be better for it.  Christians would be better for it.  Society at large would be better for it.  Mother Teresa did this as she tended the poor in India.

An excerpt from The Box A book that seems to have an intriguing premise, if you care that much about Grass personally. I cannot conceive of why so many writers think their own lives make for particularly interesting reading.  On the other hand, I have to admit to being captivated by this beginning.

Thucydides hates realists

La Carte et la Territoire reviewed I'm surprised by much of this review.  Not the Houellebecq I'm accustomed to--at least according to this review.

Abraham Verghese Cutting for Stone This is a book I've looked at on and off, this review makes me think I need to do more than look.

Audio Ulysses

Céline on joy

Reflections of Djuna Barnes

John Kenneth Galbraith interviewed by Bill Moyers

More on Whitman

The Matchmaker of Kenmare Frank Delaney reviewed.

The City and the City by China Miéville

Remember John Keats

"The Shore Haunter" by Loren Eisley Talk about cultivating a sense of wonder--the thought of the lake shores on which mammoths once wandered.

Next reviewed I liked it better than the reviewer at Hungry Like the Woolf.  I liked it a great deal, but the reviewer makes some good points.

Pastime

See what happens when you're away from blogging for a day? Zeno's Conscience 1 Zeno's Conscience 2 A book I have long meant to take up along with Robert Musil's incomplete epic.

Philosophy is supposed to be difficult

A review of Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Author explains The Last Ringbearer

E-book Piracy

You are asked to name the 10 greatest poets My list according to their rules: Rumi Basho Li Po Tu Fu Shakespeare Keats Yeats Eliot Wordsworth Stevens Now to order them Oh well. I can't.  Let's just say this forms the top ten in my estimation. And I have to say that it is a quickly considered top ten--not one with great thought behind it.  So. . . perhaps I should think more and post again.  Though I probably won't.

This review of The End of Eternity , reminded me of my debt to Isaac Asimov. In my youngest days, the works of Isaac Asimov--particularly The Foundation Trilogy sparked and fed a continual sense of wonder. In my convention-going days, I was able to meet and talk with the Legend and found that he was an ordinary, affable, congenial, pleasant companion for short stints.  (I cannot comment on more because I only spent a short time with him--dinner or such--each time we met--but I always enjoyed our conversation and interaction).  One could do worse than to revisit the works of Mr. Asimov--or if interested in exploring science fiction to visit them for the first time.

The Sheltering Sky Paul Bowles

An interesting discussion-starter list of American Fiction

Marginalia in the electronic age At first I thought, well this is a no-brainer, one can easily annotate most texts under most e-book readers.  But the question is not the making of the marginalia, but the preservation of them under the rapidly changing protocols of internet delivery, etc.  This is essentially a librarian/curator problem and as such, it is fascinating.

Most Useful Cultural Archives A nice list of where to go online for some really spectacular information.  Also via Books Inq.  I think.

This was a cool set of waves on Lake Superior via Books Inq, I think

Elizabeth Costello reviewed. This encapsulates my experience as well, but says it much, much better than I could do.

Ten greatest philosophers Rene Descartes and John Locke are the only ones referenced from the Modern Era.  I'd be interested in the opinions of any itenirant philosophers out there.

While I liked Wolf Hall , I was not nearly so enthusiastic as Frank is in this review.   I found her use of third person at times extremely thorny and confusing, and felt that we lingered a trifle in places where I would have preferred to speed on.  On the other hand, I enjoyed it greatly while I read it.  I must say though, that it has no lingering power with me.  Nothing from it sticks in my head as particularly provocative or evocative after having read it nearly a year ago.  This is, ultimately, how I judge the value of what I have read.

Exploring Happiness by Sissela Bok If there is a place where I am most often deficient in my reading of works in translation, it certainly must be works in translation.  This one sounds like a wonderful intellectual feast.  I hope I can find it in the local library soon. (Although, it is possible this is not a translation--still, the point holds.)

Please remember to go out and support my good friend Randy at his Meet the Author Event in Dublin.

"Aporia"  As always, excellent

A short piece by Abraham Lincoln

Short Stories from the 20s

Chain Bookstores and their demise via Books Inq.

"A Form of Epitaph"  And before you read the last bit of commentary--see if you recognize the form.

Australian literature considered: the triumvirate

"Social Experiment" The challenge of the untranslatable word

The Burning Land considered

"God and Gossip" An evolutionary psychologist (ridiculous in any understanding of evolutionary principles--almost Lamarckian in its implications) tells us why humans are pathetic losers, but shouldn't look at themselves that way.

I don't have the Landmark Arrian , wasn't even aware of its availability.   Looks like I need to add a book to my list.

Norwegian Wood trailer

From Ulysses While I admire the whole book, probably my favorite portion is the Laestrygonians because of that magnificent walk through Dublin that doesn't culminate in the Gorgonzola sandwich, but certainly features it.

Facing the ex nihilo arguments of a physicist I'll be the first to admit--I am also a bad philosopher.  The fact is, I'm just not that interested because much philosophy flies in the face of experience and therefore is immediately invalidated in the real world.  I have no interest in any argument that does not address what is here, now, and real. be that state of mind, nature of the soul, or what makes for beauty. Additionally, I was not trained in this way of reasoning, and for most scientists, it is a set of reasonings that lack anything on which to reason.  It is often, to me, like an endless series of Euclid's postulates, all of which I need to accept before I can accept the conclusion. For example, Aquinas baldly states that reason is a positive good.  I must accept that to go farther with Aquinas.  But what if I don't.  What if I say that reason itself is neutral--that it is the purpose to which reason is but that makes the faculty itself good o...

Gorgeous realization of zooming into a spiral galaxy.

Model Home reviewed

Haiku Treasury

An Elegy for Borders

Neeta Lyffe: Zombie Exterminator Sound like it could be a romp.

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/stratblog/2011/02/17/rapporteurs-report-the-peloponnesian-war-by-thucydides/

Literature and literalism, finding the happy medium in the interpretation of Scripture.

Reading is overrated?

Guillermo del Toro to direct At the Mountains of Madness We'll see if funding materializes, but if he handles it with the aplomb of The Orphanage and Pan's Labyrinth with a liberal sprinkling of Hellboy , we're likely to be in for a real treat.  The first Lovecraftian treat on film (other than the Lovecraft-in-name-only Reanimator. ) Poor H.P. suffers nearly as badly as E.A. Poe and Stephen King in the transition to the silver screen.  Consider such gems as Die, Monster Die!, The Shuttered Room, The Dunwich Horror .  Dagon was all right, but not much related to the story.  And probably the best Lovecraftian film, In the Mouth of Madness has precious little to do with anything H. P. penned.

Against interpretation

A review of The Fish Can Sing

After London continued

A review that helped me decide that it wasn't really so bad that I tried to read it twice and just couldn't manage. Not that I found it bad or off-putting, I just couldn't get behind it in any way.  And now, I feel relieved of my duty to try to do so. 

Via Biblioklept--A Run Through Gatsby Manor

Wye House

Notice of a New Online Literary Magazine--Chamber Four Received notice in e-mail but have not yet had the chance to look through the whole thing.  Thought you might like to know.

James Reeves--"Leaving Town"

Mailer v. Vidal For those who thought incivility in public was a relatively new phenomenon.  

"Gems from George Eliot"

Allegra Goodman v. Jonathan Franzen Even from the brief description, it appears that I would need to look into the book by Ms. Goodman.  It sounds too good to be missed. When people have sex in Freedom, heads bang on walls. In The Cookbook Collector it's a finger on the chest and then fade out. There are great flights of imagination in The Cookbook Collector – like the scene where George stumbles upon a collection of 17th-century manuscripts in the cabinets and ovens of a musty kitchen: "For a moment, he thought she was searching for the iodine, and then he saw them. Leather-bound, cloth-bound, quartos and folios, books of every size."  I'll spare you the rest of that paragraph.  In all, it sounds to me like Goodman wins hands down.  So why so little acclaim--read the article to find out.

The Sculpture:

When I'm back in the business of buying books: The Ancient Near East via Books Inq.

One of those great and mysterious books that, while they do not abound, never fail to intrigue. via BooksInq.

The 400th Anniversary of the KJV With Shakespeare one of the great pearls of the English Language.  Admittedly there are problems with it as a translation--but given time and age, these are remarkably few.  And of course, most of us have not been trained to wrestle with the complexities of this made-for-reverence manifestation of Jacobean English.  But, it is worth your time.

Heart of the City --Ariel Sabar Despite my own expectations, I'm slowly reading through and enjoying this compendium of true love stories sparked by a New York setting.

The Fifth Queen --Ford Madox Ford Perhaps a palliative for those who succumb to frothing at the mouth over Wolf Hall (either succumbing to the critical approval or railing against the language and historicity).  The review makes this sound like a book worth taking up.

Frankenstein: Lost Souls reviewed In general, I am NOT a fan of Dead Koontz.  I've like the Thomas books.  However, this series has always been a bit persuasive.  Perhaps I should consider it.

The Last Ringbearer Yisroel Markov And a link to the entry on which one may find the downloadable file. And in an odd case of synchronicity--Brandywine Books discovered this as well.

Acquainted with the Night considered Somehow I missed this first time around--but it looks like the kind of book I could sympathize with.  Never much cared for morning, but love the dusk and night.

False Colours reviewed

Wow, this MP3 is remarkable---Truffaut and Hitchcock together and talking cinema.

Celebrating? Sax Rohmer I'm not sure celebrate is exactly the word for encountering Mr. Rohmer's opus--if you can screen out the bigotry, the books do make for some occasionally entertaining reading.  And I suspect that without them Mr. Bond would not be amongst us. Without Mr. Rohmer and Mr. Boothby, it is highly likely that SPECTRE would be a mere spectre of itself.

After London , continued.

The Bostonians 125th Anniversary Hard to believe that anything by James would spark a scandal.  Edith Wharton, yes, James, particularly of this period. . . well, not so much. In his inimitable way--this is what Twain had to say on the matter: Mark Twain famously declared that “I would rather be damned to John Bunyan’s heaven than read [ The Bostonians ].” Later critics developed a keener appreciation.

Morte D'Urban considered A marvelous, insightful, and delightful book.

Feiyu and Oe among those on the Man Booker Asian Prize List.

Science gets there, well after Chesterton

A Brown Dwarf or a Gas Giant in the Outer Reaches This is tremendously interesting--in the outer reaches of the solar system.

You have to be in less than full possession of your faculties to consider something like this at Jaws. I mean, what do you do when you wipe out?  Flip off the skies, grab them, and then try to swim to shore in ski boots?   At Jaws, that's insane. (Thought it was Pipe, but label indicates that it's Jaws)

Ratcliffe Manor

Morality without Religion--is it possible?  Depends on what you mean?  Is it sustainable--not sure that's been tested.

HMH Books in Translation Giveaway

Thucydides on American Foreign Policy Wonderful reading.  A glance tells us why reading the classics is a good practice beyond the mere exercise for the mind.

After London reviewed

NYU Open Courses

The Queen's Rap v. Canada

"Home"-- Edward Thomas

The Mayor of Casterbridge reviewed

This epigram of Pope's puts me in mind of a little ditty by Beethoven

I wouldn't want to be the one to seek out one scarier.  El Camino del Rey

Scientist Valentines--Faraday and Copernicus both have highly attractive valentines.

Picked up an absolutely delightful volume at the library.  Richard Parks On the Banks of the River of Heaven --a collection of short stories.  In the first three stories we have a tale about how the otter in the river of heaven made things better for the lovers who needed to cross the bridge of birds; how Kali Ma incarnates in the tv of a recently divorced man--she's looking for Shiva and he's supposed to show up here; and the tale of the man who married the mermaid and his son. Haven't read enough to post a review, but this is light, airy, full of myth and fantasy.  The stories move quickly and they are utterly delightful.  This is the kind of collection that makes you feel good as you are reading it.

Actually, according to statistics, something less than one in a million

The City of Tranquil Light --Bo Caldwell I've seen this book and have been undecided about its merits.  Picked it up, fondled it, gazed upon it.  But this review is enough to encourage me to read it.  Besides that I really love the title. 

A Review of Tom Holt's Expecting Someone Taller --sounds delightful

Classical Music and High Intelligence Being a major fan,  I should hope that it were true.  But, I'm dubious.  Equally I'm dubious about the other side of the proposition.  And I will note that if you have a will to, you can learn to enjoy nearly any kind of music.  One would profit from reading the Stravinsky chapter of Jonah Lehrer's Proust Was a Neuroscientist .

The Great Australian Novel: Child Lost in the Bush motif considered

"The Bus to Ramallah" --gorgeous, poignant, short and beautiful

A rather rabid, but highly interesting comment on multiculturalism   Odd, I thought both Hallal and Kosher laws were, in fact, less cruel than normal slaughtering methods.  But I know nothing about the matter so I cannot say. Note: I apologize--I am sometimes like a bull-dog when it comes to these issues, and so I post the following: Kosher and Hallal And I apologize in advance to any I may have offended by linking the two.  However, this, coming from an agricultural university seems to suggest that both Kosher and Hallal represent the most profound respect for and awareness of the animal to be slaughtered.  I am not an expert, but I wouldn't want to leave the field without presenting both sides.  I had always been taught that the Kosher laws were, in fact, laws to elevate humanity above the animals and to teach respect for the living things that themselves give life.  Not respect to the point of idolization, but respect to the point of reducing cr...

And this day I am reminded of one of my sojourns in Dublin when I decided to talk from my hotel down Grafton Street to the northern border of St. Stephen's Green.  Because I had not done so before, I followed the street to the next major intersection and headed north--at this point only desiring a walk.  To my surprised, I found myself let out at Whitefriars Church (a church I had spent much time and energy tying to find on a previous trip, only to discover it closed.)  This is a Carmelite Church, and thus quite dear to my heart.  I went in because the church is reputed to have within the relics of St. Valentine--and sure enough there they were.  I spent some time there requesting the intercession of St. Valentine--and curiously, it appears, in celebration of his feast day, those prayers have been, if not answered, at least addressed.

Walter Jon Williams gives us a fascinating look into the world of online role playing games and gamers.  We start with our protagonist Dagmar flying into Jakarta on her way out of India and back to the U.S..  Just as she does so a currency collapse in Indonesia sends Jakarta into chaos and she finds herself trapped in the city and virtually trapped in her hotel room.  But, she's still connected.  Using those connections and getting the help of literally hundreds, if not thousands of fans, she bests the mercenaries hired by her employer to spring her from Jakarta. Back in the states one of her best friends from college is murdered and his death caught on film by one of the gamers.  And so it goes. Williams effectively explores the world in which all of the ingenuity and person power that goes into online games is exploited toward good ends--uncovering a murderer and undoing some of the damage cause in a world-wide currency crisis. The book moves--fast....

Just as I was a dissenter on The Road , seeing in it far more optimism that others did, so too with The Angels are the Reapers   in some ways it's a positively perky little zombie apocalyse: [Alden Bell responding] What I enjoyed most about writing the book – and what I hope readers will enjoy most about it – is the sense of unfailing optimism about the world, no matter how miserable and blighted it seems to be. The book is tragic in all the ways you might expect, of course, but there’s an underlying hope that feels like it triumphs by the end. I like that. I’m a sucker for the bittersweet ending.

Conversation with Alden Bell an interesting excerpt: But, yes, I think you hit the nail on the head with Cormac McCarthy. He was a huge influence on the narrative style of the book – along with other writers of the Southern Gothic genre: Tom Franklin, William Gay, Daniel Woodrell. Behind them all, of course, is William Faulkner. Faulkner is my cornerstone. Reapers is loaded with pretty overt references to him. And, yes, I really am quite susceptible to the styles of books I’m reading. That’s one of the reasons Hummingbirds is so different from Reapers. One day I’m reading Muriel Spark, the next I’m reading Cormac McCarthy. Especially when I’m at the beginning of a novel, I try not to read anything that will derail the style – at least until the book is sufficiently established. I once got on a Virginia Woolf kick in the middle of trying to write something – and the story wound itself into such knots of internal monologue that I had to abandon it entirely.

"The Chinese Restaurant in Portrush"

Elizabeth Bishop on the New Yorker.

How long is the memory of the dead?  - Quotation from the book This book came to me recommended by an unimpeachable source--Julie at Happy Catholic.  Generally, if Julie likes it, so do I  (we're rarely mismatched that way), I think there are many things that I have truly liked that Julie has found somewhat less appealing--so my match to her recommendations is about 90%, the reverse match probably closer to 70%.  But we have high compatibility as reading partners. Problem is, I have a very high avoidance factor with zombie novels.  No matter how many I read, they still disturb me down to the very core of my being.  Conceptually, they are just about the most awful thing I can think of short of Jaws , and most likely for the same atavistic reason. But you didn't really stop by to listen to me natter on about my own sensibilities, did you?  You really want to know about this book, don't you? Think James Lee Burke filtered through Cormac McCarthy'...

Prof. Myers comments on the list of most essential Jewish Fiction

A young woman confronts the mayhem she has caused. from The Reapers are the Angels Alden Bell The thing that happened back here, she says. I mean it ain't like you asked--but anyway. He doesn't take his eyes off the fire. I mean I guess I been around meatskins too long, she continues. Sometimes it happens where I'll lose it. Like a switch got flicked somewhere in my brain, you know? And then my hands'll start rippin and tearin and they don't care about the whys or wherefores. The fire pops and sizzles with the sap from the branches they found. And it's wrong, it's  a sin as big as the world we live in, bigger even--to lay your hands on a creation of God's and snuff it out. It don't matter how ugly a thing it is, it's a sin, and God will send a terrible vengeance down on you for it--I know, I seen it. But the truth is--the truth is I don't know where I got off on the wrong track. Moses, he says I ain't evil, but then if I ain...

Received a wonderful gift yesterday in the mail,  Heart of the City by Ariel Sabar.  What is most wonderful about it is that if I read only the introduction  (I won't, I'll read the whole thing), it will be enough to make the entire book worthwhile. Working under the principles of environmental psychology author Ariel Sabar shares nine different love stories that begin and sometimes center around the city of New York.  But he starts with an essay that tells how he became interested and what he looked into before compiling the case studies that make up the rest of the book.  Relating his own parents' love story, he notes that if his mother had not stepped into Washington Park, their romance might never have started: from the Introduction to Heart of the City Ariel Sabar "So wait a second," I said, turning to my father. "You mean if she'd never gone into the park, you wouldn't have tried to talk to her?" "Correct." The streets...

Rendezvous with Rama considered