A Momentary Taste of Being

Some insights from Houellebecq

"The Artistry of Memory" Neurologists tell us that we continually remake and refashion our memories so that we never really recall what happened but the story we tell about it.  But I question the relevance, and the points raised in this article articulate those questions better than I ever could.

More on Woolf's Essays--a distinct encouragement for me to reconsider.   The voice is so crisp, so plain, so very precise and inviting--everything I don't read Woolf for.

Dreamthorp- -a book of essays that it sounds as though I must find. And for those, who like me, demand immediate recourse: The Project Gutenberg Dreamthorp via Books Inq.

Working the Room After Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi , which had some interesting and amusing moments, this book of essays seems like it might hit the spot.

"Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction"  An O'Connor Lecture/Essay

A beautiful excerpt from an Essay of Montaigne While it doesn't appear to be about contemplation of the four last things, that does seem to be the atmosphere that hovers over the contemplation of withdrawal: Since God gives us leisure to make arrangements for moving out, let us make them; let us pack our bags; let us take an early leave of the company; let us break free from the violent clutches that engage us elsewhere and draw us away from ourselves. We must untie these bonds that are so powerful. . .

On the Supernatural in Literature On Henry James's Ghost Stories

Best American Essays--The Free Way The best way for me, because I never finish one of these books--I always intend to, but I'm so slow at reading nonfiction that by the time I get around to the last essay, the next year's is out.

"Listen to This"--an article in the New Yorker by Alex Ross

On the Reading of Difficult Tomes. excerpt: But perhaps I'm just making up reasons to excuse my own laziness, using an anti-canonical argument to justify not bothering to read anything mind-widening. Am I ignoring the challenging books that I know would bore me, or just ignoring anything that challenges? Anything truly innovative requires an adjustment of taste from its audience. If I hadn't been a wide-eyed, hideously pretentious teenager then I'd have never realised the music of Xenakis wasn't just noise. I'd have never taken the time to adjust my head to Middle English and been able to enjoy Chaucer. R.T. has recently decided that reading Finnegans Wake is not worth his time or effort; however, to leap from that individual and even laudable decision to the conclusion that it is therefore a waste of time for anyone of sense is perhaps too wide a leap.  There is a great deal of room to determine that a given work is not really worth one's time.  ...

Lee Seigel on fiction

a piece by Nicholson Baker about one of my favorite pieces of music--Debussy's La Mer

"Joyce Carol Oates Goes Home Again."  At Smithsonian.com And, of course, like any writer worth her salt, she visits the library.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on Chinua Achebe. An excerpt: When, in 1958, the London publishers William Heinemann received a manuscript of Chinua Achebe’s "Things Fall Apart," they were unsure whether to publish it. The central question, according to editor Alan Hill, was this: "Would anyone possibly buy a novel by an African?" Not only were there a mere handful of examples of African writing in English at the time – such as Amos Tutuola’s surreal "The Palm-Wine Drinkard" and Cyprian Ekwensi’s novel of contemporary Lagos, "People of the City" – but none of them had the ambition, the subtlety, or the confidence of "Things Fall Apart."

The Millions tells us why prizes matter (or don't)

Can you imagine a more cantankerous duo--a diptych in irrascibility and harsh (as an artform)?  Well if not, once again thanks to Mark's blog cited directly below, we have Hitchens on Gore Vidal --you may want to put on your aprons before wading into this one.

While reading an article on fraud in Physic found at Books INQ., I was reminded of one of my all-time favorite "physics" articles--a true masterpiece Alan Sokal's "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity." What Sokal offers us is a bracing race through the Alice-in-Wonderland world of the extremes of modern critical theory through application to one major physics question.  What results is the finest skewering of certain bents of critical theory ever enunciated with a straight face.  It does, and does better, what James Hynes's The Lecturer's Tale does more directly.  I love Hynes's book, but you have to respect any physicist who was able to come up with: from: "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Tranformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" Alan Sokal There are many natural scientists, and especially physicists, who continue to reject the notion that the disciplines concerned with so...

Thanks to Anthony at Times Flow Stemmed this article critiquing and analyzing Geoff Dyer. ( Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi )

An alert from a blogfriend tuned me into this essay on the American Novel of the recent past . I have not read the entire thing, but it does note some of my major areas of discomfort with some of our foremost writers.  The plain facts of the matter are that I really don't need to know that much about what others do behind closed doors, and unless there is something here germane--some critique, some analysis, some deep understanding being exposed--it is largely a waste of effort on the part of the writer.  If it is mere engagement that is required, there are other means. And it is for this reason that I always feel that I must be missing something--perhaps something exceedingly important, when I engage Roth and Updike (among others).  So, now I'll go back to the essay and see if I can discover what it may be that I am not experiencing.