books, books, books

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Jack of All Parades
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Jack of All Parades »

I know where you are coming from-for me it is the image of the wind the sheer coldness and oppresiveness of it-for me the feel of nothingness and that scares me and I think Hemingway-you are right in calling out the flatness but that flatness has an appeal for me-the sheer objectivity as I have always been drawn to Hemingway's basic emotions- love, fear, pain and a general sense of hopelessness that one tries to put off by 'light'- are you familiar with Larkin's "Aubade"?-that is the same feel I get out of this story and that opening paragraph.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by alexv »

But Christopher, in Larkin's poetry there's lyrical beauty, even if the themes are dark. Hemingway's style, as Otis points out, is just too flat. It may be intentional, and have an artistic goal, but I like beautiful lines. I blame him for what later came to be known as the Minimalist School. He liked Cuba, though, so he can't he all bad.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

DIdn't know 'Aubade', so checked it out:

http://www.boothill.ca/goatwrrld/aubade.html

Some typically great Larkin lines there, e.g. 'unresting death', and 'the uncaring / Intricate rented world'. I must get a Larkin collected poems, I only have stuff in anthologies. I can't get enough of 'The Whitsun Weddings', and love Larkin's recording of it. He's one of the most evocative poets I know. You can almost smell the dusty sunlit railway carriage and hear the 'uncle shouting smut'.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by bambooneedle »

-edit-
Last edited by bambooneedle on Sun Oct 04, 2009 6:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Jack of All Parades »

Otis- it would not be money ill spent purchasing a Larkin Collected Poems-not by a long shot-I first encountered "Aubade" in November of 1977 when it was published in the Times Literary Supplement-this was the first new Larkin I had read in years as he was hunkered down in Hull stewing, drinking and bemoaning growing old and having to die-needless to say it has stayed with me as a work of art ever since- it is a supreme poem of old age and a fine coda to his output[minimal[sorry for the bad pun AV]as it was]-I chose it a few years ago as the poem I most admired at a local college event and was chosen to read it aloud and talk about it-it never ceases to strike fear in me and its savaging of religion as any sort of balm has always rung true for me-as I age I find myself struck with the same night terrors that afflicted Larkin-as he says "Courage is no good: it means not scaring others. Being brave Lets no one off the grave. Death is no different whined at than withstood."-this is the feeling I get, as well, out of the Hemingway story and another by him "A Clean-Well Lighted Place"-the wind that enters that story is the same as the "soundless dark" that envelopes Larkin in his bedroom in Hull-it is all enveloping.

There are so many poems by Larkin that give pleasure- you site several- "An Arundel Tomb", "Church Going" "Going, Going", "Dockery & Son" "At Grass" this only scratches the surface-it may very well have been Larking mouthing the smut- as the Motian biography makes painfully clear his familiarity with pornography.
Last edited by Jack of All Parades on Sun Oct 04, 2009 9:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Jack of All Parades »

AlexV- let's not forget his love of cats as well at Finca Vigia- although he was a great decimator of tropical fish in your waters.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Mr. Misery »

When asked by W.H. Auden how he liked living in Hull, Larkin replied "I expect I shouldn't be more unhappy there than anywhere else." My favorite poem of his wasn't in any of the volumes he published in his lifetime:

Continuing to Live
Continuing to live -- that is, repeat
A habit formed to get necessaries --
Is nearly always losing, or going without.
It varies.

This loss of interest, hair, and enterprise --
Ah, if the game were poker, yes,
You might discard them, draw a full house!
But it's chess.

And once you have walked the length of your mind, what
You command is clear as a lading-list.
Anything else must not, for you, be thought
To exist.

And what's the profit? Only that, in time,
We half-identify the blind impress
All our behavings bear, may trace it home.
But to confess,

On that green evening when our death begins,
Just what it was, is hardly satisfying,
Since it applied only to one man once,
And that one dying.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Jack of All Parades »

Mr. Misery- thank you for sharing yet another good example of Larkin's self-loathing and self-laceration- that it comes from 1954 with so much life yet to live is sad-what a thing to deposit as a curio in a library keepsake-I love how the stanzas mirror a neatly kept ledgerbook-itemised items lost-not a risk taker even then{just think of "Annus Mirabilis"}no poker for him, just logical chess-love the nautical/mercantile imagery-'lading-list', 'impress' 'command' of the deck which is 'walked the length' although within the mind-the notion that life should equate to a 'profit' and then finding he comes up short on the ledger side-have always had difficulty with 'green evening'-can never quite make it out-I wonder if it coincides with birth and the decline that begins with that event[green being a birth color-think spring]-I often wonder what made this man so miserable-was it being a depression baby? a survivor of the war? the drudgery he consigned himself to in Hull?-it is a marvel to me that he created the extraordinary poetic output that we have-I know that as the years wore on the output appreciably fell off-he has given me so many lines and poems to treasure-thank you again for sharing one of yours.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Wasn't it because his parents fucked him up?

'For Sydney Bechet' is very life-affirming, with its 'enormous yes', but then again for Larkin it's 'as they say love should', not how it does.

(Posted by well-known music writer and deadpan wit David Quantick.)

For you, CS:
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Jack of All Parades »

Oh my!!!! thank you, thank you, thank you- what a treat- I have never heard his voice till now-to say I have yet a newer appreciation of this poem would be an understatement-this has literally brought tears to my eyes-and the accompanying photos such a bonus- and the Bechet[a favorite of my father-in-law as he knew him] yes, yes, yes!!!! I have my own personal copy of "All What Jazz" a record diary in a Farrar,Straus Giroux hardcover with a great painting of Larkin on the front cover arms across his belly holding drum sticks- yes he would like us to think the parents fucked him up or as he says all of us-but to be so miserable and nasty there has to be more. Thank you for this treat.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Check out 'The Whitsun Weddings' read by him. Once heard, you can only ever imagine the poem in his voice. I think most literary recordings are readily found on the internet. Personal faves are Eliot reading 'The Waste Land' (was making my son crack up with the pub scene, 'Oh yes I said' and all); Joyce reading the Anna Livia Plurabelle section of Finnegan's Wake, which enables you to understand exactly what Joyce was trying to do here, and his beautiful melodic, high voice makes the flow, the punning and the Liffey washerwomen all come vividly to life; and any Yeats you can find, who sounds more Scottish Highlands than Sligo, 'I will arise and go, go to Innisfree' etc.

You can get this Larkin CD compilation from Amazon.com marketplace:

http://www.amazon.com/Sunday-Sessions-P ... 275&sr=8-4
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Re: books, books, books

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Thank you for the suggestions- you are far more adventurous on this information highway than I- I truly am a luddite taking comfort in my printed page- I have heard the Joyce and some Yeats["Amongst Schoolchildren" "Easter 1916" etc] having owned in the past lps along with ones featuring Robert Frost and John Updike-I recall Joyce's voice as he read that section from Ulysses and more as he read his poetry particularly "Ecce Puer"-you could hear his natural singing voice as I recall he was a rather good tenor-have been able in the past to hear Malamud, Bellow, Roth, Cheever and Lowell do live readings- they were always treats-particularly Bellow and Malamud as they would toss off funny asides.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Jack of All Parades »

In a previous post re: the new Selected Poems of Wallace Stevens I had stated he is constantly on my night table, well he has a companion "Essays of Montaigne"- there is not a week that passes that I do not seek some enrichment from this book-I only bring it up because in catching up on old New Yorkers that have been piling up I came across a wonderful overview essay by Jane Kramer in the 9/7/09 edition titled "Me, Myself, and I the essays of Michel de Montaigne'- there are three men I wish I could travel back in time to meet-Shakespeare, Herodotus and Michel- not necessarily in that order- Ms. Kramer is right, he is the first modern man and a source for endless ruminations on mankind, and I try constantly to follow his example of always questioning what I know, often times without his humor and intelligence-when I am full of myself there is no better 'needle' to prick my pretensions than Michel-he grounds me rapidly-this week I have been scrounging in that marvel "Of Vanity" , a vast exploration of all things human[Otis he would have loved the internet like you], including death and ones fear of it as Michel was facinated with his pending end and wrote brilliantly about it in this essay[my time with Larkin and Hemingway and the news and deceased relatives and the relatives of co-workers and the pending 15th anniversary of my brother's passing continue to weigh upon me] in rereading portions in the early hours of last night I was struck by a particular passage that Ms. Kramer cites:

'But there should be some legal restraint aimed against inept and useless writers, as there is against vagabonds and idlers. Both I and a hundred others would be banished from the hands of our people. This is no jest. Scribbling seems to be a sort of symptom of an unruly age. When did we write so much as since out dissensions began? When did the Romans write so much as in the time of their downfall? Besides the fact that mental refinement does not mean wiser conduct in a society, this idle occupation arises from the fact that everyone goes about the duties of his office laxly, and takes time off.'

I have been weighing these words and take them to heart and intend to cut my own laxity out-I waste too much time and words in these idle exercises- I do drone on-God I wish I had a rafter like Michel to carve upon his wise words like his tower in Bordeaux. He is such great company.[Had forgotten to also give credit to my favorite book from 2008 Julian Barnes' wonderful "Nothing to Be Frightened of"-which offers a cogent, intelligent discussion of mortality which includes insightful readings oF Montaigne and Larkin.]
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Jack of All Parades »

In a past post another board member, AlexV, had noted that we live in a time of tremendous scientific writing-I can only echo his sentiment having just completed Steven Pinker's "The Blank Slate-the Modern Denial of Human Nature"- I have simply never encountered a scientific text that is so well written, that makes the conceptually difficult subject matter[in this case human nature] into a fluid, well written and delivered argument-his systematic dismemberment of the old dogmas the blank slate, the noble savage and the ghost in the machine is dazzling and often times very funny-I marvel at his common sense and clear, deep thinking-by the end of the book I could only paraphase Shakespeare with oh what a wondorous thing is man-who we are and what we are and how we act is so entangled with our chemistry[our biology] and our cultures-everyone should have to read this marvelous book.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by mood swung »

Ohgoddamittohell, can y'all just stop being so goddam SMART all the time???


(regulars will note that it's Saturday here EDT, and maybe the tequila is flowing. I am spelling rather marvelously.)

Went to McKay's today, which is the most fabulous place EVER. They take trades and they have everything.

I dumped 20 lbs of shit and got 8 list books.


(menacing music)

to be continued.....
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Mr. Misery »

mood swung wrote:Ohgoddamittohell, can y'all just stop being so goddam SMART all the time???
Alex V, Christopher, and Otis: don't feel hurt by this, it was clearly directed at me.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Well that's a relief - there was I thinking Moodster was having yet ANOTHER go at me and all that.

Smartness fine by me, what I have issues with is reading so many goddamittohell books! Don't you have a TV, Christopher?
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Re: books, books, books

Post by pophead2k »

I'm most of the way through Evelyn Waugh's 'Vile Bodies'. As a fan of dry and preposterous British wit, I'm enjoying it very much.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by alexv »

Mood's lighthearted comment reminds of something my uncle told me a long time ago (he's a non-reader). "Don't ever confuse knowledge with intelligence". Some of the smartest people I've known never read, certainly not the kind of stuff that turns our Board's obsessive readers on.

Anyway, i'm feeling nostalgic and mellow this fine Sunday morning, basking in the glow of my daughter's Saturday tennis triumphs (she's in the semis of a tough USTA New England tennis tourney today and beat a long time bete noire yesterday 10-8 in a third set tiebreaker), and my son's budding baseball career (best hitter in town!!).

So, about reading. I started reading, and I mean reading (3 Musketeers; Jules Verne; the Illiad (yep, with illustrations) as a tot in Cuba because of my father's example. He was permanently in the phase that CS seems to be on now: searching for knowledge. I have a vivid memory of borrowing this huge book he was reading about the first climbers of Mt. Everest.

He read all the time, and I idolized him. He was a teacher, as was my mom (way smarter than him, and a non-reader) and aunts who also reared me. They taught me to read while very young and encouraged me, the way i encourage my kids in sports.

When we left Cuba we were not allowed to take any property with us, nada. I insisted on taking two books: The 3 Musketeers and The Last of the Mohicans. My parents were very concerned (the freaking communists used any excuse to keep you back) and tried to get me to relent and leave them. I refused, and clutching my books and some clothing we made our way out of the Cuban hell.

I lost the Musketeers in Madrid, but Mohicans is still with me, and i plan to follow Chris Walken's dad's advice in Pulp Fiction and tell my little guy "never part with this..."

Books mean a lot to me.

I just finished the life of Maimonides and I'm reading "The history of god" by Karen Armstrong whom I hate. But that's for another post.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Jack of All Parades »

Mood- I am far from smart or intelligent- just inquisitive and I cannot spell for beans stimulants or not. Great way to stock the library- I do this frequently as well with trips to NYC and the Strand bookstore,

Mr. Misery- no offense was taken as I long ago learned to take a rib when giving one- keeps the humor chain going- and I do like your wallpaper- the Shakespeare folio head.

Otis- do have a TV and until the past year a user all too frequently-but have had that epiphany that life is too short and want to make better useage of my time- am guilty of still watching Dancing with the Stars with the Mrs and Curbing Your Enthusiasm and my redsox when I can catch a game.

AlexV- hope someday I do not see a Richard Williams in the stands at Roland Garros-that is great news about your daughter and your son.

Pophead- he is a funny serious writer and I enjoy him-I also know from past posts that AlexV does so as well, particularly his letters.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Curb Your Enthusiasm is genius and shouldn't induce any guilt. I love good comedy, good TV all round.

Maimonides: as in Cordoba. I recall reading about him when travelling there. Wasn't he one of the most innovative mathematicians of his era? Can't recall the details. I love Cordoba. Like many places in Spain, e.g. most of Andalucia, haven't been back since I left there in 1991. Must return! I used to make a few trips a year for work.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by alexv »

Yes, Otis, as in Cordoba. Lived in the 1100s, born in Andalusia, then lived in Acre and finally in Egypt. He was a Jewish thinker who wrote highly influential books interpreting the Talmud and Torah. A lot of what he wrote has been, amazingly, preserved, in his own handrwriting no less. You really get a sense of the incredibly diverse culture that existed in the Middle Ages, particularly in Islamic Spain. The religious stuff is frankly boring, but some of it is actually funny. Maimonides, for example, takes great pains to compile endless lists detailing rules for living with God. My favorite: according to him, the answer to the question why bad things (in the Middle Ages lots of bad things) happened to good people is simply that those good people allowed God to stray from their thoughts. Simple. I have to remember that.

Don't know about his math expertise, but he was a doctor (well, a Middle Ages kind of doctor, really a quack) who was very much taken with science and tried to apply it to his Old Testament reading. He was Saladin's physician.

It's also interesting that when you read the letters written within Islamic Europe there is a consensus on only one thing: Christian Europe is full of savages. Intolerant, illiterate, violent and with very bad hygiene.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Was he a Virgo?

I guess I confused the general thing of the incredible depths of Islamic and Jewish learning in Spain including very advanced mathematical understanding. The pre-Ferdinand and Isabel history of Spain is endlessly fascinating. You go to a place like Toledo, that Spanish citadel, and are blown away by the two ancient synagogues and the fact that some Visigothic walls still remain, as well as the great cathedral, which in itself contains some great Mudéjar ceiling designs, this being the crossover between Islamic and Christian art that flourished in multi-cultural 14th and 15th century Spain.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by johnfoyle »

http://www.saltpublishing.com/horizon/i ... hlaith.htm

Cousin Órfhlaith has a new story online. It's wicked stuff, so surprising considering what a sweetie Órfhlaith is.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Is that the 'correct' version or what is more commonly seen as Orla/Orlaith? I don't recal that 'fh' bit before! Nice.

Interesting that it's from Salt Publishing. Started by a former colleague of mine. I followed the link to all sorts of posts and details from him, which was fun as I haven't heard what they've been up to in recent years. Good on him for making a go of it, though it sounds like they nearly came unstuck this year, but then a smart Facebook idea helped things along:

http://www.thebookseller.com/blogs/8690 ... -book.html
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