books | dual personalities

May 23, 2012

Odds and ends and St. Elmo’s Fire

by chuckofish

It was a big weekend. Daughter #2, as you know, graduated.

I bought this vintage 1970s needlepoint pillow at an estate sale.

And I finished Moby-Dick.

“One often hears of writers that rise and swell with their subject, though it may seem but an ordinary one. How, then, with me, writing of this Leviathan? Unconsciously my chirography expands into placard capitals. Give me a condor’s quill! Give me Vesuvius’ crater for an inkstand! Friends, hold my arms! For in the mere act of penning my thoughts of this Leviathan, they weary me, and make me faint with their outreaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to include the whole circle of the sciences, and all the generations of whales, and men, and mastodons, past, present, and to come, with all the revolving panoramas of empire on earth, and throughout the whole universe, not excluding its suburbs. Such, and so magnifying, is the virtue of a large and liberal theme! We expand to its bulk. To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.” (The Fossil Whale, chapter 104)

A mighty book indeed! You’ll hear more about this book in the days to come. If you are looking for something to read, I can make no stronger a recommendation–read this book!

3 Comments

May 21, 2012

The art of (not) mincing words

by chuckofish

Sylvia Beach, American ex-patriot, minister’s daughter and owner of “Shakespeare and Company”, a bookstore in Paris, decided to rescue Ulysses which had been banned in English-speaking countries, by publishing it herself in France. A prospectus was printed announcing that Ulysses by James Joyce would be published “complete as written” by Shakespeare and Company Paris, in the autumn of 1921. The edition was to be limited to 1000 copies. On the back of the prospectus was a blank form to be filled with the subscriber’s name and his choice of the kind of copy he wanted (there were 3 choices).

Sylvia sent a prospectus to George Bernard Shaw, even though Joyce said he would never subscribe. They made a bet. She received the following reply:

Dear Madam,

I have read fragments of Ulysses in the serial form. It is a revolting record of a disgusting phase of civilization, but it is a truthful one; and I should like to put a cordon around Dublin, round up every male person in it between the ages of 15 and 30; force them to read all the foul mouthed, foul minded derision and obscenity. To you possibly it may appeal as art; you are probably (you see I don’t know you) a young barbarian beglamoured by the excitements and enthusiasms that art stirs up in passionate material; but to me it is all hideously real: I have walked those streets and know those shops and have heard and taken part in those conversations. I escaped from them to England at the age of twenty; and forty years later have learnt from the books of Mr. Joyce that Dublin is still what it was, and young men are still drivelling in slack-jawed blackguardism just as they were in 1870. It is, however, some consolation to find that at last somebody has felt deeply enough about it to face the horror of writing it all down and using his literary genius to force people to face it. In Ireland they try to make a cat cleanly by rubbing its face in its own filth. Mr. Joyce has tried the same treatment on the human subject. I hope it may prove successful.

…I must add, as the prospectus implies an invitation to purchase, that I am an elderly Irish gentleman, and if you imagine that any Irishman, much less an elderly one, would pay 150 francs for such a book, you know little of my countryman.

Faithfully,

G. Bernard Shaw

Sylvia was amused by being called “A young barbarian beglamoured”, but she lost the bet all right.

5 Comments

April 16, 2012

Tout va bien

by chuckofish

“Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.”
Arthur Schopenhauer

4 Comments

February 9, 2012

What are you reading?

by chuckofish

1. I just finished Tinkers by Paul Harding, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, a short, beautiful first novel.

So few books like this are ever written, much less published. It is about an old man on his death-bed remembering his father, who in turn remembers his. A keeper!

2. Then Again by Diane Keaton–I am currently reading this memoir by actress Diane Keaton.

It is more about her relationship with her mother than a celebrity tell-all, and that is what attracted me to it. She is an unpretentious and intelligent person who was very close to her mother and wrote the book after her death to try to understand her better. “Comparing two women with big dreams who shared many of the same conflicts and also happened to be mother and daughter is partially a story of what’s lost in success contrasted with what’s gained in accepting an ordinary life.” Like me in my youth, Diane has frequently been classified as a “flakey chick”, but still waters run deep as they say.

3. The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge–a juvenile novel I had heretofore missed. The cover of the newest edition is terrible, isn’t it?

An older one is much more appealing:

It is purportedly one of J.K. Rowling’s favorites and it is very popular in England. It was even made into a movie starring Ioan Gruffudd, but they changed a lot (playing up some vague romance angles) and angered the book’s fans. It was good and well written and I finished it, but it won’t be added to my shelf of classics.

4. Volume II of the Library of America collected writings of Raymond Chandler.

I periodically re-read his novels, which never disappoint. One can read these books every year, because the plot is forgotten as soon as the book is closed. It is old Philip Marlowe that lingers.

And the prayer book, so the Psalms are always at hand!

What are you reading?

3 Comments

December 30, 2011

Great Reads of 2011

by chuckofish

The two books I raved about all year and wanted to hand out to people like candy were Karl Marlantes’s fabulous

and Hilary Mantel’s

I haven’t read anything better than these two books in ages. Yes, Matterhorn is a war novel and, yes, it’s unpleasant, but why shouldn’t it be? This book goes way beyond the typical war story; it is wonderfully nuanced and manages to give every point of view. As for Wolf Hall, well, my dual personality introduced me to it (for which I am very grateful) so I don’t have to go into great detail about why it’s wonderful. As I blogged earlier, the book made me love Thomas Cromwell!

Honorable mentions go to two re-reads:

A favorite of mine since middle school, T.E. Lawrence’s