January 2012
21 posts
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Spiritualized - “200 Bars” Lazer...
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“If a man have neither wife nor other to rule his household, know you how it is...”
– St. Bernardino
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Sent from F. Scott Fitzgerald to his young... →
Things to worry about:
Worry about courage
Worry about cleanliness
Worry about efficiency
Worry about horsemanship
Things not to worry about:
Don’t worry about popular opinion
Don’t worry about dolls
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“He who does not turn up the earth with the plough ought to write the parchment...”
– St. Ferreol
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The Beatles - “I Feel Fine...
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“He made no pretentions to botany, and knew nothing of groups or classification;...”
– Les Miserables
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The Food of the Gods (H.G. Wells, 1904)
One of Wells’ lesser-known works, The Food of the Gods is an enjoyable but perplexing book. The premise is simple enough: a pair of scientists invent a substance that causes life to grow much larger than normal, the explanation being that growth is naturally punctuated because of the sporadic presence of this substance, which if supplied artificially causes continual expansion. A neat and...
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“For conduct which to clearer minds seems merely sane, was in those days to be...”
– Olaf Stapledon, Last and First Men
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Clams Casino - “What You Doin”...
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Vocabulary: Kimmering Clachan Edition
Scots words and phrases from The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
braird: the early shoots of a crop of grain like wheat or barley luckpenny: a sort of discount given to a buyer for luck windelstrae: a stalk of dry grass bicker: wooden drinking vessel wynd: a narrow alley (i.e. wind) aumuse: a cap worn by clergy ayont: beside or adjacent to bourock: a hovel or shelter...
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The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified...
This interesting book was put in my hands by a good friend whose literary suggestions are sound without exception. It is not, as the title may suggest, a tell-all like Pepys’ diaries, or even, really, a private memoir at all. It’s a striking early example of nontraditional narrative structure, predating many other adventurous novels and reportedly inspiring Stevenson’s Jekyll...
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“Did I exist before my birth? No. Shall I, after my death? No. What am I? A...”
– Les Miserables
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December 2011
20 posts
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“One generation abandons the enterprises of another like stranded vessels.”
– Thoreau, Walden
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“Human thought has no limit. At its risk and peril, it analyses and dissects its...”
– Les Miserables
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“Set not thy foot to make the blind to fall; Nor wilfully offend thy weaker...”
– Pybrac, Quatrains (17th c.)
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“Then he asked himself: If he were the only one who had done wrong in the course...”
– Les Miserables
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mowing the lawn: stories and photos of low-level... →
This was way more interesting than I thought it would be.
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Vocabulary: Corporeal Grandiloquence Edition
perorate: to speak formally or at great length, or to conclude a speech in such a way irredenta: a region allied by race or history to one country but ruled by another naometer: apparently a title given in secret societies. Possibly a fabrication. abnegation: self-denial, or the relinquishment of a right or property anchylosis: the adhesion or growing together of bones in a joint tendentious:...
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“The guillotine is the concretion of the law; it is called the Avenger: it is not...”
– Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
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The City & The City (China Mieville, 2009)
This book has been recommended by many a shelf tag in book stores, and won a number of prizes last year, or maybe the year before. At any rate, like The Wind-Up Girl, it was showered with praise and I looked forward to being pleasantly surprised by one of the more critically-acclaimed sci-fi books out there. Alas, I have been deceived again, and while the book is certainly not bad, it’s...
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“So parents often err, many fond mothers especially, doat so much upon their...”
– Anatomy of Melancholy
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chromatic typewriter →
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Au Revoir Borealis - “Bella Ballerina”...
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“Many mortal men came to see fair Psyche, the glory of her age, they did admire...”
– Anatomy of Melancholy (paraphrasing Apuleius)
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Extracts from Olaf Stapledon's "Last and First...
The following was originally published in 1931. I found it remarkably prescient.In the Far West, the United States of America openly claimed to be custodians of the whole planet. Universally feared and envied, universally respected for their enterprise, yet for their complacency very widely despised, the Americans were rapidly changing the whole character of man’s existence. By this time...
November 2011
18 posts
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“Meanwhile, Bramanti went on: “Sublime Hierogam of the Chemical Wedding,...”
– Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum
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An Instance of the Fingerpost (Iain Pears, 1997)
The full-immersion historical novel isn’t an easy one to get right. It’s easy to get bogged down in irrelevant contemporary details, info-dumps in the form of history lessons, archaic speech. Or it can be a failure of overarching style, as novels written in the 18th and 19th centuries in particular (popular periods for period books) are for the most part extremely well-structured, a...
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“If anyone can achieve power, then all will try and government becomes a mere...”
– Iain Pears, An Instance of the Fingerpost
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“When Sir Philip Sidney was making the grand tour, three centuries ago, he came...”
– Harper’s (1871)
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