Counting My Blessings

Book 118. A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Madeleine L'Engle

2009-12-06T17:51:58Z

I periodically reread this trilogy. More specifically, I frequently reread A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind At the Door. Even as a child, I had the most mixed feelings about A Swiftly Tilting Planet. I was curious how I would experience it now.

And the answer is: I still don't love it. At least not in the same way. Meg is very incidental here, and despite Charles Wallace's specialness throughout the book I (kind of obviously) preferred Meg. I also missed having Calvin as a character, although his mother makes for an interested addition. I like that L'Engle felt the need to question the way that she drew his family as trailer trash in the earlier books.

Mostly, I'm uncomfortable with the biology as destiny side of the novel. The notion that the wrong father = a bad baby sits wrongly with me. Even as a child, I felt some uncomfortable sympathy with the "bad" siblings and cousins in this book. That feeling got worse as an adult.

My passion for the trilogy as a whole remains what it is. Even in my least favorite installment I still remembered it well enough to recite large passages word for word from memory. This just isn't my favorite of the three.

(Note: I'm aware that she eventually wrote two more books in the world of these three. But I haven't read the last two. A trilogy it was to me as a kid, and a trilogy it remains to me, I'm afraid.)

Book 117. Notes On Walt Whitman as Poet and Person, John Burroughs (and an apology)

2009-12-06T14:27:35Z

(Available at Google Books, if you're interested.)

John Burroughs was an American essayist. Wikipedia describes him as a "literary naturalist". He met Walt Whitman during the Civil War, and this little book serves two purposes. It is a meditation on Leaves of Grass as well as a memoir of that friendship. Amazon tells me that it was the first biographical sketch of the author. I can't substantiate that, but it seems likely to be true.

Whitman has long been one of my great literary loves, and this book was a pleasure to read simply for reminding me how much I love Leaves of Grass. My copy is so fragile (1872 second edition, in poor shape) that I didn't dare linger over the pages, but have gladly bookmarked online text versions so that I can spend more time with it later. There are obviously more complete biographical texts, but it is fascinating to read a personal sketch from someone who knew him personally and who was a good friend. The closeness to the man adds its own touch as reading experience.

Recommended for anyone who loves Whitman, and doesn't mind spending a little time on something unusual.

This book came out of one of my old boxes. The box had been packed together for many years, maybe as many as 12 years? I found this letter pressed between its pages. The date of the letter is 31 March 1987:

Dear Cheryl--

I often "purge" my library attempting to circulate books that I will not read for at least a decade. (As a Lipton Tea Bag once said: "A tightly closed book is nothing but a block of paper.) I also have the theory that if I need to read a book, it will come my way. Unfortunately, I feel that this volume on Whitman will not be properly used/read/loved by me, so I must pass it on. I have a sense that you are a Whitman fan and may enjoy this book.

Please accept this gift, and, if it is not the time for you to read it, please pass it on to someone who will enjoy it.

Thanks!

Joseph (unreadable)

I remember Joseph clearly, although not his last name. If I can figure it out, I may well write him an apology for taking 22 years to read his gift-- not really in keeping with the spirit of the gesture. I couldn't be as genrous as he was with books. I do pass on books which I don't want to keep after reading to others, but I don't think that I could bear to give an unread book away. I wonder if this is a habit that he maintained through the years?

memesheep

2009-12-04T18:49:58Z

On the twelfth day of Christmas, frumiousb sent to me...

Twelve found letters drumming

Eleven christmas cookies piping

Ten go-betweens a-leaping

Nine pataphysics dancing

Eight readymades a-milking

Seven crusades a-walking

Six pilgrimages a-franchising

Five dre-e-e-eam analysis

Four spike jones

Three found objects

Two new houses

...and a borneo in a rrose selavy.

The mosaics of Ravenna.

2009-12-04T15:28:53Z

In case you're wondering if it's worth a trip to Ravenna just to see the ancient mosaics, I have to say that it really is. My pictures don't do them justice, but when I first laid eyes on the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, for instance, it really felt like someone poured cold water down my back.

In a good way, mind you.

you can't really see it, but the mosaics are submerged here

A few last details from Venice.

2009-12-01T20:46:59Z

Book 116. The Blood Spilt, Asa Larsson

2009-12-01T18:40:40Z

It may have been angel80 who recommended this. If she didn't, then I recommend it right back to her.

In this story, a traumatized attorney named Rebecka Martinsson returns to the area of her birth and finds herself caught up in another murder investigation. A polarizing female priest has been killed in a small Swedish town, and the police are unable to make headway in the case.

As with all good mysteries, Blood Spilt is as much an investigation of northern Swedish life as it is about the murder itself. What Larsson does really well is play with the ambivalence that Rebecka feels about the town and her roots, digging at the layers that separate her from the past. I was less impressed with the thread about the wolf. I found it too distracting, even though well executed.

Looking forward to reading more by Larsson in the future.

Book 115. Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, Lew Wallace

2009-12-01T07:58:39Z

illustration from my edition (Spencer Press-- World's Greatest Literature series)

Lew Wallace was actually a pretty interesting guy. He was a lawyer, a Civil War Union General, and Governor for the New Mexico Territory. In terms of cultural history, Ben-Hur is actually a pretty interesting book. Wikipedia tells me that until 1936 (when Gone With the Wind was released) it was the best selling American novel. It has never been out of print since its date of publication. What I knew already about the book was that it returned the feeling of morality to the popular novel-- it quickly became required reading at public schools and Sunday schools alike.

Before it became a popular film (which I have never seen, by the way-- limited patience for toga flicks) it was also a popular stage play. An online article by Amy Lifson tells me that twenty million people saw it staged between 1899 and 1920. (And a revival arrived this past September in London, by the way.)

But all this is history. What is it like to read? I was dreading it, a little bit, because I had heard about the tedious and long pages of description and dated plot. I have to say though, it really wasn't bad. Once I got into the text I found that it read rather quickly, and it was hard not to feel how much effort Wallace had put into historical research and detail. Part of his mission, quite clearly, had been to bring some realism to the typical understanding of the nativity story. (The Christ is born in a cave, not a manger, etc.)

The main plot actually has little to do with religion, and has all the typical potboiler elements. A choice between the good girl and the bad girl; A prince falsely accused by a bad man; leprosy endured and cured. It's all very exciting and keeps the pages turning. Some of the description does go on and on (and Wallace isn't Dickens, it sometimes isn't charming) but I found it easy enough to blow through those sections and into the next bit of exciting plot.

I don't know how much I would recommend this as a reading experience, exactly. Probably interesting, if you're excited by the history of the popular novel and want to trace this books influence on popular culture.

La Biennale Di Venezia

2009-11-30T15:10:42Z

(or a couple of shots from it, anyhow.)

the best thing about the exhibits was the combination of the modern art in the historic settings.

The Korean Library exhibit was my favorite at the Biennale.

scrap heap of metal, that with light projection looks like copulating rats

Book 114. The Dragons of Babel, Michael Swanwick

2009-11-30T13:52:04Z

A lot to say about this book. It returns to the world of The Iron Dragon's Daughter. This is a happy thing for me, since that is and remains one of my favorite fantasy novels. I wish I had more adjectives to convey "dark" and "original". Those words are overused, aren't they? But they apply here, both of them.

The story, as is usual for Swanwick, weaves together a number of plot threads. Think of it more as a rope with many strands than as a single clear plot line. There's something about power and how it corrupts, and something else about the pros and cons of terrorism. There are magical creatures of many kinds, all inventive and lovingly detailed. There's a lost king plot too-- but I would wager it is different than you have seen that old chestnut cooked before.

There is some chaos here with all these elements cooked together. I didn't mind it at all-- I was carried along by the energy of the book itself. If you like your fantasy very neat and simple, this may not appeal to you. Also be aware that the only "young" part of this book is the original age of the main character-- I would not mistake either this or The Iron Dragon's Daughter for young adult reading. At least not typical young adult reading; I suspect that there would be rather too much adult for many parents here.

Book 113. At Winter's End, Robert Silverberg

2009-11-28T13:23:28Z

One my pet peeves (& yes, I am peevish) in a science fiction novel is when the book prefaces itself with a quotation from some kind of prophecy/historic text written from the future/news article which delivers the backstory that the reader is going to need to enjoy the book. It can be used well as a device-- mostly when it delivers atmosphere instead of information. But to my mind it generally represents sloppy plotting or an overly intrusive editor.

Anyhow. At Winter's End begins with just such a preface, and it put me in the mind to be irritated. Also, while Silverberg is one of my long-term favorite authors in the genre, I'm well aware that his work can often be uneven. There were also a couple of seemingly predictable elements in the first part of the book-- tribes, rules, long history, dream dreamers-- bla bla bla. So I was kind of expecting not to like the book very much.

But, you know, in the end I did. It grew on me by moments, until by the end I really had a difficult time to put it down. It starts off in one very typical way, and seems to end up as something else again. Silverberg doesn't give himself an easy way out-- no easy quests, no Great Lord of Darkness to slay. It becomes a little book about being human and about starting again. The world building is very good, and I liked it very much.

I noticed with amusement that many of the reviewers of this book had exactly the opposite journey. They were very happy with the beginning when they thought it would be a more typical book, but became annoyed when it started to meander and became more philosophical. Consider both points of view if weighing this as a purchase.

Book 112. The Private Patient, PD James

2009-11-28T12:59:21Z

I wouldn't recommend this to someone who has never read PD James before. It isn't the strongest of her books in several respects. Additionally, James seems to be working purposefully with unease, missed connections, unclear futures and lack of meaning. I tend to think that someone who trusts and is familiar with her work will give her the slack to try those elements out as part of the mystery novel. However, they aren't the kinds of plot points that make for a satisfying novel, full of closure.

What do I mean by this? For example: Clues that feel significant, and that lead nowhere. Note that I don't mean red herrings-- I mean clues that literally lead nowhere. There are red herrings too, but there are also unexplored moments of the kind that normally mean something in detective books. Also, I think that there's something odd about the way that she handles Rhoda as a character. James puts us into her perspective and lets us have access to her as a living character for nearly 125 pages. Not bad by itself, but after that, Rhoda is left a cipher. Her death feels utterly disconnected from what we know of her life. It creates a jarring effect (and results in many of the thrown away clues that I mentioned earlier). She has her secrets as well. We're given glimpses of them, but they remain tantalizingly opaque.

There are also the issues with AD and his special investigations squad-- the looming dissolution of the unit hangs over the book. It feels as though James has as much desire to tie up the loose ends in her character's lives as much or even more than she wants the murder to be solved. Actually, the solution to the murder is neither simple nor clear-- I was left feeling frustrated myself and not quite smart enough to get what either James or AD were driving at. But it isn't, somehow, the main point of the novel either.

PD James has a lot of credit with me, and I enjoy her writing very much. That remains true in The Private Patient. Even a flawed James is better than much of what is out there on the market-- at least for this reader. This said, The Private Patient is an odd sideways kind of book, and its concerns are not typical for a mystery novel. If you want a typical mystery novel, look elsewhere. (And sometimes you really don't want to have to work to read a book.) If you want a typical James/Dalgliesh novel, look into her earlier work.

Book 111.The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition

2009-11-24T06:48:49Z

I have read most of the big Hemingway novels-- For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Sun Also Rises (my favorite), The Old Man and the Sea. I had limited exposure to the short stories, having only read "The Short Happy Life of Frances Macomber" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro". Honestly, I didn't like those two very much-- they seemed to distill the elements of Hemingway's prose of which I am least fond. I decided to buy this book since I have been spending more time lately on the structure of the short story-- and Hemingway is a master of prose.

I am actually glad that I read the whole collection. It is a pretty big pill to swallow, and there were moments when I got a little bit tired of it. But to read all of his short stories gives a much more nuanced sense of his approach to topics like blood sports, war, and masculinity then you get from just reading the handful of famous stories. I liked him and his narrative voice much better for reading the whole thing. My favorites were some of the smaller pieces midway through the volume: "The Killers" and "A Day's Wait" were personal favorites, for example.

If you have an interest in Hemingway and would like to read further in his work than just the major novels, then I would certainly recommend the collection.

Book 110.The Monster of Florence, Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi

2009-11-22T16:09:37Z

Hm. In a lot of ways, this was a really gripping book. I was actually travelling in Italy when I read it, and that made it especially appealing. The story of the Monster of Florence is reasonably well known, and this book is as much or more about Italian culture/the Italian legal system as it is about the serial killer itself.

The two of them raise a lot of points that resonate with other reading I have done about corruption in the Italian judiciary. So that was really interesting.

I found that I was a little bit less comfortable with the idea that these two well-known authors would actually name a living suspect. The ethics feel murky to me, regardless of the circumstances. I get why they did-- the structure of the book demands it. Still, trial-by-author does not feel wonderfully fair to me.

I rarely read true crime books, so I'm not sure if this is normal or not, but I felt the structure jumped around a bit as a result of the two authors. Particularly towards the end, it got a wee bit exhaustive for the average reader. But I think that's excusable, given the circumstances.

I'd certainly recommend this as an anecdotal example of corruption in the Italian legal system. It's also a reasonably enjoyable read. If it's for you, it may be just the thing.

Book 109. The Sorrows of An American, Siri Hustvedt

2009-11-22T15:46:50Z

This is the first book that I have read by Hustvedt. I knew little about her or her work or her life, aside from her obvious connection to Paul Auster.

After I finished the book, I was left with mixed emotions. The book is an odd bundle of contradictions. There is a lot of plot to it-- mysterious memoirs, family secrets, stalkers, psychiatrists, bonds with the past and present of families. For all the plot, however, the moments are often so subtle they vanish like cobwebs. I was moved by the book when I was reading it, but found I had a very difficult time remembering any of the specifics when I sat down to write this review. I might have wished for some of this book to be more starkly drawn. Perhaps because there was so much, perhaps because Hustvedt so resolutely refuses grand moments, perhaps something to do with my limitations as a reader-- not sure, but it was a little to ephemeral for me.

Also, I really had trouble with Erik as a male character for the first quarter or so of the book. After I finished, I read several critics comment (based on apparent biographical knowledge) that Erik was "clearly" Hustvedt herself. I don't know about that, but I suppose it would explain the thing. What I do know is that I really had to get through the dissonance between how I read the character and his gender.

The writing itself is gorgeous. No doubt about that. I will certainly read something more by Siri Hustvedt. Recommendations as to what are gratefully accepted.

Food in Italy 2009.

2009-11-22T12:24:38Z

venice

octopus and polenta in Venice.

pizza in Venice

pumpkin ravioli in Ravenna

amazing heart-of-chocolate cake with candied rose petals

Modena

There is a restaurant in Modena so wonderful, that we would go back again just to eat there. It is called Osteria Stallo Del Pomodoro-- inexpensive, wonderful service, amazing local food. This picture is of a starter plate featuring local specialties.

Some street scenes from Venice.

2009-11-19T06:05:52Z

These two pictures are why despite the gorgeous weather I would not return to Venice in October.

from the Ducal palace

waiting for our shuttle back to the island.

really terrible cafe close to our hotel.

Book 108. The High King's Tomb, Kristen Britain

2009-11-18T17:35:46Z

Okay-- let me begin with what I liked. Britain retains her ability to work within genre without giving in to cliche. She injects smart characters and politics into a pretty standard fantasy set up. It is a combination that continues to charm (this reader, at least).

This said, The High King's Tomb was a disappointment compared to the first two books in the series. It is a very long book, first. That would matter less if it was action packed, but it meanders-- frankly. It takes hundreds of pages to get to the main elements that separate this piece of time in the Green Rider world into a novel. Several of the plot points-- "harmless" errand, etc., were predictable to the point of eye rolling. I also wasn't fond of the magical horse farm a la Tom Bombadil. None of these sins would have been unforgivable by themselves. But given how long the book took to get to the point, they rubbed me the wrong way.

I also had the vain hope-- disappointed hope-- that this series was going to be a trilogy. But it isn't. This is just book three. So much remains unresolved, including some of the most interesting character aspects. And given Britain's track record, this means another three plus years of waiting before we get to book four. (And yes, I do completely respect the right of a writer to work at their own pace and yadda yadda yadda-- but it *does* take some of the continuity away for the reader when you need to wait 3+ years between each book. Just saying.)

Please *do* note that I wouldn't be nearly this cranky if I didn't like the earlier books so much. Britain is still writing some of the smartest epic fantasy books out there. Many will not be disappointed with The High King's Tomb. Some, like me, probably will be. I'll give Britain a pass and see what happens with book four.

Book 107. Why Things Bite Back, Edward Tenner

2009-11-18T10:05:56Z

The best things about this book were the chapters on environmental disasters and invasive species. Those are the bits which have really stuck with me since I read the book. In general, there are some really great anecdotes in here, and it should appeal to the gloom-and-doom monger among your family or set of friends.

It doesn't quite live up to its claims as a book-- Tenner is better at the anecdotes than in making the connection between them. The "why" in the title is never really delivered. And unfortunately his writing style is a tad on the dry side, so I actually kind of wanted a "why" as a payoff for getting through the book. Oh well. I can still imagine there are quite a few people for whom this is exactly the thing.

Book 106. The Orphan's Tales: In the Cities of Coin and Spice, Catherynne M. Valente

2009-11-14T10:15:28Z

In the Cities of Coin and Spice gives us The Book of the Storm and The Book of the Scald, completing The Orphan's Tales.

Probably nothing Valente could have done would have matched the impact that In The Night Garden made on me. I read it at a personally very difficult time, when for a few brief days her prose lifted me out of my grief and gave me something new to consider. That book was a blessing for me-- execution and timing interacting perfectly.

Even if it cannot (for me) match the first, In the Cities of Coin and Spice would still be something that I would very much recommend. The Orphan's Tales deserve to be read as a whole. The achievement is impressive-- fractured fairy tales, seemingly completely new; nested stories; characters and motivations both dark and strange. I have not been a fan of Valente's other work, to be honest, but these volumes are just wonderful. Fairy tales written for grown-ups that still capture the experience of being a child.

I loved this volume just a little bit less. The gap was largely seated in the Tale of the Scald. It felt just a touch too long-- somehow did not catch me as much as the other three sections. But this is a minor quarrel.

Valente is such a good writer. Her style doesn't always work for me, but in these books, it works perfectly. If you haven't read anything in the series, then begin at the beginning.

Book 105. A Russian Diary, Anna Politkovskaya

2009-11-13T20:30:47Z

One alarming note was that some of the participants imagine that Putin is being misled, that he hasn't been given the true picture. The Tsar is a good Tsar, but the boyars are bad men. An old, old Russian story.
pg. 139

On 7 October 2006, the journalist Anna Politkovskaya was assassinated. She was shot dead in the elevator of her apartment building in an apparent contract killing. It is very important, I think, to bear this ending in mind while you read A Russian Diary.

Politkovskaya is not objective. This is not a personal diary. You will not find charming anecdotes about her personal life interspersed among the political commentary. She often sounds like that friend you had at college who would not stop ranting about her conspiracy theories and the fact that the world is going to heck in a handbasket. Except that she ends up dead for her ideas. A good reminder not to confuse Russia with the West.

Politkovskaya is angry, passionate. She refuses to stop caring. She refuses to be objective, because objectivity comes too close to numbness. This is a partial book (in several senses)-- think of it as an act of witness. She writes her rage at what Russia has become day by day.

She is very smart, and often funny-- albeit in a dark way. I had the feeling I would like her. And I hate how her story ended. It isn't an easy book to read. I still think as many as possible *should* read it. Decide for yourself.

It is already 15 January, and Volodya Beryozin was buried nine days ago, but Russia became indignant only after Putin expressed his anger. Soldiers are dust beneath their officers' boots. That's the way it is here and Putin, himself the incarnation of a stereotype, accepts it. His anger is a pre-election stunt. No more than that.
pg. 57

This whole system of thieving judges, rigged elections, presidents who have only contempt for the needs of their people can operate only if nobody protests. That is the Kremlin's secret weapon and the most striking feature of life in Russia today. That is the secret of spin doctor Surkov's genius: apathy, rooted in an almost universal certainty among the populace that the state authorities will fix everything, including elections, to their own advantage. It is a vicious circle. People react only when something affects them personally: old Judge Boris Ozdoev when his son Rashid was abducted, the same as the Mutsolgovs. Until then, if my hut is out of harm's way, why worry? We have emerged from socialism as a thoroughly self-centered people.
pg. 107

This is very much our style, closing our eyes to reality until it hits us like a typhoon. Like the majority, I find it appalling that our children have been reduced to this, but I know the way things stand today. So what is it our state authorities want? Are they suicidal? Are they colmly waiting for the appearance of new terrorist Kalyaevs, Zasuliches and Savinkovs like those the Tsars conjured up?

Or are they simply mindless, living for the moment? Today, while they are in power, they have their snouts in the trough and are getting away with it, so let tomorrow take care of itself? Is the main thing to hold on to your place at the trough for as long as possible? Does being in power in Russia really mean no more than having a place at the trough? I think they are mindless.
pg. 139

One alarming note was that some of the participants imagine that Putin is being misled, that he hasn't been given the true picture. The Tsar is a good Tsar, but the boyars are bad men. An old, old Russian story.
pg. 139

The main problem is that while collapse is inevitable, we will not see it in our lifetime. That's a pity, because we would like to.
pg. 284

In the past six months hunger striking has become the sole means of asserting the right to free speech, a right supposedly guaranteed by the constitution. There is much you can no longer say, but you can still go on hunger strike to show that you have been silenced. Sounding off at protest meetings has become virtually useless, mere preaching to the converted, those who share your views already know the situation, so why keep tellling them about it? Standing in picket lines is pointless, unless it is to salve your conscience. At least you'll be able to tell your granddaughter that you did more than vent your spleen in your own kitchen. Even writing books that don't get published in Russia because they are off-message doesn't have much impact. They are read only by people living abroad.
pg. 188

Liza Umarova

2009-11-13T20:05:11Z

Water & Venice

2009-11-13T14:20:27Z

View from our island out on the lagoon.

These were really just for tourists, but the Vaporetti are super cool.

Quiet canals

I do wish this one hadn't been soft.

Happy crackpot of the day.

2009-11-13T06:26:51Z

(Thanks to the Dangerous Minds blog.)

Book 104. Perfect Circle, Sean Stewart

2009-11-12T09:34:31Z

I think I have said this before. Several times before, even. Sean Stewart is a *wonderful* writer. His characters have great sensitivity and depth. His humor is subtle, but effective.

I have not always found his plotting skills were as good as the rest of the package. I thought the first few books I read by him were slight and a little bit easy to forget. Then I read Mockingbird, and it was an astonishing novel. Everything good combined to be something great-- I still really recommend it.

Perfect Circle is not, to my mind, quite as good as Mockingbird, but it is awfully close. Ostensibly about ghosts (at least according to the cover), it is more about a man trying to fix his life in the face of unusual talents and the usual handicaps. There was something about the plot that reminded me oddly of Douglas Coupland's novels. I suspect neither author would appreciate the comparison, but there you go.

When I look back on the book, I find the ending has melted away from my memory. I can discover it back again quickly. Still, there is something a little unfinished about the ending which makes it slightly less strong than Mockingbird. At least for me.

Meet William "Dead" Kennedy and find out for yourself.

Book 103. Lectures in America, Gertrude Stein

2009-11-12T08:13:20Z

Sentences and paragraphs. Sentences are not emotional but paragraphs are. I can say that as often as I like and it always remains as it is, something that is.

I said I found this out first in listening to Basket my dog drinking. And anybody listening to any dog's drinking will see what I mean.
pg. 223

This book is an old friend. As a student, I wrote my thesis on Stein, and spent many hours examining these texts for insight into her writing. Lectures in America is among the most lucid of her prose work; perhaps I should say it is among the most easily accessible of her books in general.

I never owned the book, however, which meant I was delighted when I found this Virago Press edition. Prefaced by Wendy Steiner, it was very fine to have a chance to revisit the work. I remembered it very well indeed. Familiarity meant instead of struggling with her unique style, I was able to dive right in to the sections which I had neglected in college. For instance, I spent a lot more time with her section on "Pictures" than I had in the past.

Lectures in America is a body of essays written for her lecture tour of the states following the unexpected success in 1933 of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. The tour attracted large and enthusiastic audiences, and Random House brought this book out, hoping to ride the wave. Alas, the Lectures did not sell well, and slipped into being the property of academics and the odd Stein fan in the wild.

The book consists of the following sections:

What Is English Literature
Pictures
Plays
The Gradual Making of the Making of Americans
Portraits and Repetition
Poetry and Grammar

It is awfully important to know what is and what is not your business. I know that one of the most profoundly exciting moments in my life was when at about sixteen I suddenly concluded that I would not make all knowledge my province.
pg. 14

Yes perhaps a little somewhat of that time. They knew their style knew that there were two styles. There was a style that those who run may read and there was a style too a style that those who read do not run. They need not run because there is nothing to run with or from.
Pg. 20

He knew that there were two things to do and which of the things did he have to do. There was a choice at that time a choice as to how a writer should write. And this choice when there is a choice a writer can and does feel as a choice between serving god and mammon. This choice has nothing to do with religion, it has nothing to do with success. It has to do with something different than that, it has to do with completion.
pg. 22

As I say the pleasure of a literature is having it all inside you. It is the one thing that one can have all inside one.
pg. 27

If you live a dialy life and it is all yours, and you come to own everything outside your daily life beside and it is all yours, you naturally begin to explain. You naturally continue describing your daily life which is all yours, and you naturally begin to explain how you own everything beside. You naturally begin to explain that to yourself and you also naturally begin to explain it to those living your daily life who own it with you, everything outside, and you naturally explain it in a kind of way to some of those who you own.
pg. 42

I once said in How to Write a book I wrote about Sentences and Paragraphs, that paragraphs were emotional and sentences were not. Paragraphs are emotional not because they express an emotion but because they register or limit an emotion. Compare paragraphs with sentences any paragraph or any sentence and you will see what I mean.
pg. 48

It is natural that I should tell about pictures, that is, about paintings. Everybody must like something and I like seeing painted pictures. Once the Little Review had a questionnaire, it was for their farewell number, and they asked everybody whose work they had printed to answer a number of questions. One of the questions was, what do you feel about modern art. I answered, I like to look at it. That was my real answer because I do, I do like to look at it, that is at the picture part of modern art. The other parts of it interest me much less.
pg. 59

From this time on familiarity began and I like familiarity. It does not in me breed contempt it just breeds familiarity. And the more familiar a thing is the more there is to be familiar with. And so my familiarity began and kept on being.
pg. 78

A painter's literary idea always consists not in the action but in the distortion of the form. That could never be a writer's literary idea. Then a painter's idea of action always has to do with something else moving rather than the center of the picture. This is just the opposite of the writer's idea, everything else can be quiet, except the central thing which has to move. And because of all this a painter can not really write and a writer cannot really paint even fairly badly.
pg. 90

sentences are not emotional and paragraphs are

In other words the cinema undoubtedly had a new way of understanding sight and sound in relation to emotion and time.
pg. 104

The business of Art as I tried to explain in Composition and Explanation is to live in the actual present, that is the complete actual present, and to completely express that complete actual present.
pg. 105

In ordinary life one has known pretty well the people with whom one is having the exciting scene before the exciting scene takes place and one of the most exciting elements in the excitement be it love or a quarrel or a struggle is that, that having been well known that is familiarly known, they all act in acting violently act in the same way as they always did of course only the same way has become so completely different that from the standpoint of familiar acquantance there is none there is complete familiarity but there is no proportion that has hitherto been known, and it is this which makes the scene the real scene exciting, and it is this that leads to completion, the proportion achieves in your emotion the new proportion therefore it is completion but not relief. A new proportion cannot be a relief.

Now how does one naturally get acquainted in real life which makes one have a familiarity with some one. By a prolonged familiarity of course.

And how does one achieve this familiarity with the people in a book or the people on the stage. Or does one.

In real life the familiarity is of course the result of accident, intention or natural causes but in any case there is a progressive familiarity that makes one acquainted.

Now in a book there is an attempt to do the same thing that is, to say, to do a double thing, to make the people in the book familiar with each other and to make the reader familiar with them. That is the reason in a book it is always a strange doubling, the familiarity between the characters in a book is a progressive familiarity and the familiarity between them and the reader is a familiarity that is a forcing process or an incubation. It makes of course a double time and later at another time we will go into that.
Pgs 108-109

I always as I admit seem to be talking but talking can be a way of listening that is if one has the profound need of hearing and seeing what every one is telling.
pg. 135

I wonder now if it is necessary to stand still to live if it is not necessary to stand still to live, and if it is if that is not perhaps to be a new way to write a novel. I wonder if you know what I mean. I do not quite know wheter I do myself. I will not know until I have written that novel.
pg. 172

The difference between thinking clearly and confusion is the same difference that there is between repetition and insistence.
pg. 173

Melody should always be a by-product it should never be an end in itself it should not be a thing by which you live if you really and truly are one who is to do anything and so as I say I very exactly began again.
pg. 201

Sentences and paragraphs. Sentences are not emotional but paragraphs are. I can say that as often as I like and it always remains as it is, something that is.

I said I found this out first in listening to Basket my dog drinking. And anybody listening to any dog's drinking will see what I mean.
pg. 223