Month: February 2024
Empty Rhapsody
“Sometimes when I am writing, I am aware of a rhythm, a dance, a fury, which is as yet empty of words.” Steven Spender, a 20th century English poet.
Sounds like music to me. Could be trying to write while he’s asleep. Or maybe he’s been misquoted.
Whether he was a suspender or a spender, it’s a mystery to me.
The Draw of a Good Book.
“I just don’t think people are reading Twitter instead of a novel. The history of literature has always been interspliced with people worrying about it going away. But it seems to me there are more committed readers than ever.” Daniel Handler, an American novelist.
The name Twitter, as you likely know, has changed to “X,”but the desire for books is ever present. After all, Amazon started as a bookseller.
There is something in many of us that seeks quality writing. It’s been true a long, long time. Don’t you think?
Is the draw of good books powerful? Tyrants like to burn books.
Metaphorical, a Second Look
“A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.” Lorrie Moore, an American author.
I guess that would make my novelette a cough, a sneeze or a small hernia
And on Steinbeck’s Birthday
“I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one… . Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil… . There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good, or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?” John Steinbeck, who wrote my favorite book by a hefty margin, East of Eden.
The novel engages you with the beauty of some of its narrative and the ever deepening story of good and evil in the lives of several remarkable characters. One of them is my diametric opposite mechanically, a man who can fix anything. Additionally, he is full of warmth and goodwill.
Then there is a woman who makes the witch in the Wizard of Oz, who scarred the wits out of me as a kid, look like a saint. I still shudder thinking about this villainess.
If you somehow missed this novel, I believe you’d find it a real treasure
a Fifth of American History You Say?
Ever So Sweet
“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved — loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” Victor Hugo, the renowned French author of Les Miserables.
This gives believers peace in the face of life’s tribulation. It engenders ever increasing strength to spouses who remain together for love.
It is the sweetest thing in my life. Nothing else is even close.
Indelible Ink?
To Some of Us…
“To some of us, the wresting of beauty out of language is the only thing in the world that matters.” Anthony Burgess, a 20th century, English writer.
Perhaps that is truer for poets than the rest of us. That wrestling certainly is a part of our work whenever pen meets paper or fingertips touch keys, virtual or otherwise.
We don’t have a lot of time to wrestle. Life is short.
Burgess described it well when he wrote: “English is a curiously expressive language. Womb, room, tomb. It sums up living in three words.”
Pilgrim on a Long, Long Journey 