tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52319522012-02-02T10:51:10.250-06:00pensées inusité d'un amateur de livres - avec des rayons de lune!Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.comBlogger11491100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-63464637472888300112012-02-02T10:51:00.000-06:002012-02-02T10:51:10.314-06:00

Homo Ludens:  A Study of the Play-Element in Culture  by Johan Huizinga “Play is older than culture, for culture, however inadequately defined, always presupposes human society, and animals have not waited for man to teach them their playing.” - Johann Huizinga Homo Ludens or "Man the Player", written in 1938 by Dutch historian, cultural theorist and professor,  Johan Huizinga, discusses

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-88320024914504382422012-02-01T15:23:00.000-06:002012-02-01T15:23:54.591-06:00

The Hills of Switzerland a fragment “I can be candid here.” - Thomas M. Disch, Camp Concentration The air is bitter, yet the story is bold and a tale that I not once before have told. Yet the stories have floated in my head in days past, only to disappear, seemingly dead. Where was I going when first I heard of the stories that fired me with the word and image?

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-41994633958333108192012-02-01T04:42:00.001-06:002012-02-01T04:46:48.415-06:00

The Corsair by Lord Byron From the introduction to The Corsair by Lord Byron: Lord Byron ended the year  of 1813 in its penultimate month, and in less than three weeks (December 18, 1813) Byron began the Corsair, and completed the fair copy of the first draft by the last day of the year. The Corsair in all but its final shape, together with the sixth edition of the Bride of Abydos, the

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-56010257556731439652012-01-30T11:56:00.000-06:002012-01-30T11:56:26.034-06:00

Beowulf  translated by Seamus Heaney "Often, for undaunted courage, fate spares the man it has not already marked." (572-573)  Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf is both modern and satisfying poetry, in a translation as if from another world. The poem has in Heaney’s words a ‘hand-built, rock sure feel’ and yet at the same time his lines are expansive with an elemental feeling emanating from

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-3754652566130556612012-01-27T18:44:00.000-06:002012-01-29T11:45:55.758-06:00

The Masters  by C.P. Snow "There are some hidden streaks in any politics, which only flash to the surface in an intense election such as this.  Suddenly they leap out:  one finds to one's astonishment that there are moments when one loves one's rival--despises one's supporters--hates one's candidate.  Usually these streaks do not make any difference in the action, but in a crisis it is

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-44585007697890955262012-01-25T12:52:00.000-06:002012-01-27T18:54:53.894-06:00

The Chrysalids  by John Wyndham "When I was quite small I would sometimes dream of a city - which was strange because it began before I even knew what a city was. . . . " (p 5) The society depicted in the Chrysalids is chilling in the extreme. The setting is a post-apocalyptic Labrador, several hundreds of years after a disaster known as ‘Tribulation’, which is never explicitly defined, but

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-40974822835200269652012-01-23T08:46:00.000-06:002012-01-23T16:53:52.030-06:00

Five Women  by Robert Musil “The thought is not something that observes an inner event, but, rather it is this inner event itself. We do not reflect on something, but, rather, something thinks itself in us. ”  ― Robert Musil This is a collection of stories that reminded me of Joyce's great collection, Dubliners, in the ability of the author to both present a sense of a place in time and

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-47825232520737582432012-01-20T16:52:00.001-06:002012-01-20T16:54:44.290-06:00

Portrait of a Marriage: Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson  by Nigel Nicolson “It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-27282722944118991482012-01-18T08:22:00.001-06:002012-01-18T08:22:55.878-06:00

Utz  by Bruce Chatwin "...In his view, the true heroes of this impossible situation were the people who wouldn't raise a murmur against the Party or State - yet who seemed to carry the sum of Western Civilization in their heads. 'With their silence...they inflict a final insult on the State, by pretending it does not exist."' p. 15  Bruce Chatwin died on this day in 1989, aged

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-32011331076672319302012-01-17T09:04:00.001-06:002012-01-17T11:42:47.350-06:00

Tartuffe  by Molière Damis: "Good God! Do you expect me to submit To the tyranny of that carping hypocrite? Must we forgo all joys and satisfactions Because that bigot censures all our actions?"  -        (Tartuffe, 1.1.18) Less than two weeks ago I attended a lecture on "Why Comedy is No Laughing Matter". The lecture tilted toward serious literature that includes humor and comedy as

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-53448206227589281562012-01-16T05:02:00.001-06:002012-01-16T08:33:47.361-06:00

Reading used to be simpler.  One just had to find a comfortable chair, turn on a good reading light, open the book and read.  Now reading has become a project or rather, in my case, two projects.   First, I am reading The Guide of the Perplexed by  Moses Maimonides.  The edition we (the reading is part of a class in the Basic Program of Liberal Education of the University of Chicago) are using

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-14120049985776332712012-01-15T11:16:00.000-06:002012-01-15T11:50:53.736-06:00

Why Is There Something Rather  Than Nothing?: 23 Questions from Great Philosophers  by Leszek Kołakowski "I want to talk about the thought of great philosophers, not about their lives," - from the introduction, p x. This is a small book both in number of pages and height - it is only six and a quarter inches tall. But within this small frame Leszek Kolakowski packs a lot of philosophy.

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-4455034005911027632012-01-13T11:29:00.000-06:002012-01-13T11:29:12.328-06:00

Sviatoslav Richter:  Notebooks and Conversations  by Bruno Monsaingeon “I don’t like pianos, I like music more” - Sviatoslav Richter A life that was completely immersed in his music, Sviatislov Richter truly was a "protean" artist. The personal voice of Richter conveyed in this amazing volume is as magnetic as his playing (I regret I only know his music through recordings). On March

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-54917372918750159892012-01-09T15:44:00.000-06:002012-01-09T15:44:34.954-06:00

Temperament:  The Idea That Solved  Music's Greatest Riddle  by Stuart Isacoff "Temperaments, settling like tracks along the winding path of Western Civilization, unfettered the engine of musical progress.  Once freed, and fueled by the sparks of those most human of qualities--imagination and passion--musical art, with religion, politics, and science in tow, chugged its way inescapably

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-55432718158706024932012-01-09T09:59:00.000-06:002012-01-09T15:18:28.598-06:00

Bertram Cope's Year  by Henry Blake Fuller "'Oh,' thought Randolph, 'one of the cool boys, and one of the self-sufficing.  Probably a bit of an ascetic at bottom, with good capacity for self-control and self-direction.  Not at all an uninteresting type,' he summed up." (p 33) My favorite novels from late nineteenth-century America include Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage which I

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-60849021193834319892012-01-08T21:27:00.002-06:002012-02-01T04:46:33.074-06:00

Berlioz and His Century  by Jacques Barzun “Love cannot express the idea of music, while music may give an idea of love” - Hector Berlioz There have been few figures in the history of music with so fascinating, almost hypnotic, an appeal for the present-day reader as Berlioz. With his life span encompassing roughly the rise and fall of two French empires, he emerges as perhaps the first

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-79332305466100423732012-01-07T12:26:00.001-06:002012-01-07T12:41:30.135-06:00

But Seriously, Folks:  Why Comedy is No Laughing Matter "G.K. Chesterton once rebutted a critic who 'thinks that I am not serious but only funny, because [he] thinks that funny is the opposite of serious.  Funny is the opposite of not funny, and of nothing else.'" (from the introduction to the lecture) Yesterday I had another enjoyable and edifying noon hour attending the monthly lecture in

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-90853617649502864952012-01-06T20:24:00.000-06:002012-01-06T20:24:26.278-06:00

Daemon and  Freedom TM by Daniel Suarez “In all, his outfit required nearly two thousand man-years of research and development, eight barrels of oil, and sixteen patent and trademark infringement lawsuits. All so he could possess casual style. A style that, in logistical requirements, was comparable to fielding a nineteenth-century military brigade.  But he looked good. Casual.” ― Daniel

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-43552265507396347562012-01-05T06:22:00.003-06:002012-01-05T06:22:52.933-06:00

The Taj Mahal The Taj Mahal, the architectural masterpiece of the Islamic ruler of India, Shah Jehan, was built using artisans from Baghdad, Constantinople, and other centers of the Muslim faith. In 1983, the Taj Mahal became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. While the white domed marble mausoleum is the most familiar component of the Taj Mahal, it is actually an integrated complex of structures

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-9247313096401286112012-01-03T06:03:00.001-06:002012-01-03T06:03:38.808-06:00

Cratylus by Plato "there is an ancient saying, that 'hard is the  knowledge of the good.'  And the knowledge of names is a great part of  knowledge.  If I had not been poor, I might have heard the fifty-drachma  course of the great Prodicus, which is a complete education in grammar and  language--these are his own words--and then I should have been at once able  to answer your question about

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-15699677253505548922012-01-02T20:37:00.001-06:002012-01-02T20:37:58.338-06:00

Childhood Among the Ferns I sat one sprinkling day upon the lea, Where tall-stemmed ferns spread out luxuriantly, And nothing but those tall ferns sheltered me. The rain gained strength, and damped each lopping frond, Ran down their stalks beside me and beyond, And shaped slow-creeping rivulets as I conned, With pride, my spray-proofed house. And though anon Some drops pierced

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-59513307094008058202011-12-30T11:25:00.002-06:002011-12-30T11:26:19.561-06:00

Must You Go?: My Life With  Harold Pinter  by Antonia Fraser "What happened was this: we both felt awful at breakfast, Harold from coughing without intermission all night, me from listening to him.  I went up to the Eyrie and assembled notes re the Gunpowder Plot.  Then I chatted to a friend about Dublin.  About eleven thirty, Linda came in and said the odd words: 'Could you clear the line?

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-1885673710554294242011-12-29T15:52:00.000-06:002011-12-29T15:52:14.218-06:00

Elizabeth Rex by Timothy Findley It has been a great year for Chicago Shakespeare Theater with a string of excellent productions starting with As You Like It a year ago.  Since then I have enjoyed three tremendous plays which, while not written by the Bard, have been worthy of appearing on the stage that bears his name.  Yesterday I attended the current Chicago Shakespeare production,

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-37381202804231736642011-12-28T11:11:00.000-06:002011-12-28T11:11:21.685-06:00

Cyrano De Bergerac  by Edmond Rostand "Oh! We have our pockets full,  We poets, of love-letters, writ to Chloes,  Daphnes — creations of our noddle-heads.  Our lady-loves — phantasms of our brains  — Dream-fancies blown into soap-bubbles!  Take it, and change feigned love-words into true; I breathed my sighs and moans haphazard-wise;  Call all these wandering love-birds home to nest.

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-57945326640794752172011-12-27T21:02:00.001-06:002011-12-27T21:02:39.041-06:00

Ode  Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood by William Wordsworth   THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,       The earth, and every common sight,               To me did seem       Apparell'd in celestial light,   The glory and the freshness of a dream.           It is not now as it hath been of yore;—           Turn wheresoe'er I may,  

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-77561982995645627072011-12-25T14:04:00.001-06:002011-12-25T14:05:47.286-06:00

Neverwhere  by Neil Gaiman "The old woman took the umbrella, gratefully, and smiled her thanks.  "You've got a good heart," she  told him.  "Sometimes that's enough to see you safe wherever you go."  Then she shook her head.  "But mostly, it's not."" (p 3) There are few books in my reading experience that I would describe simply as "magic". This is one of those few. Perhaps it is the

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-37408195853076893652011-12-24T12:25:00.001-06:002011-12-24T12:25:21.708-06:00

Omeros  by Derek Walcott     "Except for one hand he sat as still as marble,    with his egg-white eyes, fingers recounting the past    of another sea, measured by the stroking oars.    O open this day with the conch’s moan, Omeros,    as you did in my boyhood, when I was a noun    gently exhaled from the palate of the sunrise.." Derek Walcott was born in 1930 in Castries, Santa Lucia.

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-64928057470636402282011-12-24T11:46:00.000-06:002011-12-24T11:46:27.275-06:00

  THE OXEN Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock. 'Now they are all on their knees," An elder said as we sat in a flock By the embers in hearthside ease. We pictured the meek mild creatures where They dwelt in their strawy pen, Nor did it occur to one of us there To doubt they were kneeling then. So fair a fancy few would weave In these

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-55757194406705657892011-12-23T11:51:00.002-06:002011-12-23T11:51:38.713-06:00

Calculating God  by Robert J. Sawyer "a book about the first contact between an extraterrestrial and someone who, I suppose, was all too human." (p 334) The science fiction literature includes an immense variety of styles and approaches for the presentation of ideas. Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer is a science fiction novel that I would  call philosophical. The novel uses the

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-14422314297461751002011-12-22T10:04:00.001-06:002011-12-22T10:04:10.833-06:00

Quotation for Today "Words having naturally no signification, the idea, which each stands for, must be learned by those who would exchange thoughts. This should teach us moderation, in imposing our own sense of old authors." John Locke, Essay on the Human Understanding, 1688  Source: quoted in Sterling Andrus Leonard, The Doctrine of Correctness in English Usage 17 (1962).

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-21857007306318678752011-12-19T12:03:00.000-06:002011-12-19T12:03:40.280-06:00

The Foxglove Saga  by Auberon Waugh Looking back at all the people I have insulted, I am mildly surprised that I am still allowed to exist.  -  Auberon Waugh Auberon Waugh's first novel, The Foxglove Saga, is a comic novel very much in the style of his father's earlier books and the result is very successful. Its hero, Martin Foxglove, is an abominably flawless paragon. While at school

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-32969247562674406362011-12-18T21:11:00.000-06:002011-12-18T21:11:10.713-06:00

The Philosopher's Apprentice:  A Novel  by James K. Morrow "This begins with a butterfly. The insect in question, a Monarch, was flitting along a strand of morning glories threaded through the chain-link fence outside my apartment window, systematically dipping its proboscis into the powder-blue cones. It was a warm fecund morning in August, and I was twenty-seven years old. The

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-1303554257510645282011-12-17T18:18:00.000-06:002011-12-17T18:18:37.868-06:00

Sonatas for Piano and Violin by Ludwig Beethoven "What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven."  -  Ludwig Beethoven Yesterday was the anniversary of Beethoven's birth and to celebrate, rather than listen to the Symphonies, Quartets or Piano Sonatas, I chose to focus my listening on the Sonatas

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-14694884077137955792011-12-15T08:37:00.000-06:002011-12-15T08:37:23.386-06:00

Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone  by Immanuel Kant "One does not have to agree with Kant's conclusions--and I do not--in order to acknowledge this as a great work in the history of philosophical theology.  It is the product of Kant's mature years, an effort to connect his religious thought with the rest of his epoch-making philosophy as presented in his three Critiques." - Morton

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-69728859486763564712011-12-15T06:28:00.000-06:002011-12-15T06:28:16.959-06:00

Emma  by Jane Austen "Doing just what she liked; highly esteeming Miss Taylor's judgments, but directed chiefly by her own. The real evils, indeed, of Emma's situation were the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself...." (Chap 1) Jane Austen's Emma was first published on this day in 1815.  I most recently read Emma as the

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-33880718718211426562011-12-14T08:58:00.000-06:002011-12-14T10:45:23.180-06:00

Chicago Symphony Orchestra Concert "I never was very capable of expressing my feelings or emotions in words. I don't know whether this is the cause why I did it in music and also why I did it in painting. Or vice versa: That I had this way as an outlet. I could renounce expressing something in words." - Arnold Schoenberg Saturday evening I attended a concert by the Chicago Symphony

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-58880247805181223372011-12-12T08:18:00.002-06:002011-12-12T17:23:25.832-06:00

Why Evolution Is True  by Jerry A. Coyne "Life on earth evolved gradually beginning with one primitive species – perhaps a self-replicating molecule – that lived more than 3.5 billion years ago; it then branched out over time, throwing off many new and diverse species; and the mechanism for most (but not all) of evolutionary change is natural selection. (3.) Jerry Coyne summarizes the

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-55644081119216602462011-12-11T08:40:00.001-06:002011-12-14T12:32:05.879-06:00

Top Twelve Reads of 2011 "Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live."  - — Gustave Flaubert My list of favorite books read in 2011 includes many more than these books. But I thought I would try to limit the list to the top twelve (I could not stop at ten)  that I read last year. So here they are in no

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-87049619224526472142011-12-10T09:01:00.001-06:002011-12-10T12:31:13.617-06:00

Here is an article from AbeBooks: The Best Book and Booze Pairings by Richard Davies Books and alcohol have been bedfellows for centuries.  Many readers love to curl up with a good book and a drop of their favorite tipple. But what are the finest pairings of literature and beer, or wine or liquor? It would be great to match Douglas Adams’ Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster, a cocktail of galactic

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-37664525815550422942011-12-10T08:15:00.001-06:002011-12-10T08:37:12.378-06:00

Averroes “Two truths cannot contradict one another.”  ― Averroes Ibn Rushd (Averroes) is regarded by many as the foremost Islamic philosopher.  Abu'l-Walid Ibn Rushd, better known as Averroes (1126-1198), stands out as a towering figure in the history of Arab-Islamic thought, as well as that of West-European philosophy and theology. In the Islamic world, he played a decisive role in the

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-3604523562693940912011-12-08T05:53:00.001-06:002011-12-08T06:15:59.181-06:00

Amy and Robert Lowell Dreams I do not care to talk to you although Your speech evokes a thousand sympathies, And all my being's silent harmonies Wake trembling into music. When you go It is as if some sudden, dreadful blow Had severed all the strings with savage ease. No, do not talk; but let us rather seize This intimate gift of silence which we know. Others may guess your thoughts from

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-24650683937075801202011-12-07T15:34:00.001-06:002011-12-08T05:53:10.068-06:00

The Tiger's Wife  by Téa Obreht "By the time I was thirteen, the ritual of the tigers had become an annoyance. Our way home from the zoo was continually marked by encounters with people I knew: friends, kids my own age, who had long since stopped sharing the company of their elders. I would see them sitting in cafés, smoking on the curb at the Parliament threshold. And they would see me,

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-49358280072534217382011-12-04T08:28:00.001-06:002011-12-04T08:44:21.409-06:00

Antigones  by George Steiner The ordinary man casts a shadow in a way we do not quite understand. The man of genius casts light. - George Steiner Between  c.1790 and c.1905, it was widely held by European poets, philosophers, scholars that Sophocles' Antigone was not only the finest of Greek tragedies, but a work of art nearer to perfection than any other produced by the human spirit. (

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-23731853139863814442011-12-03T08:02:00.001-06:002011-12-03T08:16:23.147-06:00

Dune  by Frank Herbert Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never persistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-59690132898327826402011-12-01T22:07:00.001-06:002011-12-01T22:50:57.793-06:00

Here's the question this week courtesy of  The Blue Bookcase: What work of literature would you recommend to someone who doesn't like literature?  This is an interesting question and I welcome the opportunity to share an approach to it.  First, I would want to know why someone does not like literature?  Perhaps they do not know what literature is or they do not want to read anything.  

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-7622617549397874012011-12-01T05:58:00.001-06:002011-12-01T06:15:15.191-06:00

Middlemarch by George Eliot George Eliot’s Middlemarch began publication on this day in 1871 — the first volume of eight issued, the other volumes appearing at regular intervals over the following year. Eliot's "Study of Provincial Life" was immediately popular, on both sides of the Atlantic.  It is among my favorite novels ever since I first read it more than thirty years ago.  I have

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-31186448865470921692011-11-30T11:12:00.001-06:002011-12-01T21:28:03.994-06:00

Tom Jones  by Henry Fielding "Peradventure there may be no parts in this prodigious work which will give the reader less pleasure in perusing than those which have given the author the greatest pains in composing. Among these, probably, may be reckoned those initial essays which we have prefixed to the historical matter contained in every book, and which we have determined to be essentially

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-1252940802408824202011-11-25T08:18:00.001-06:002011-11-25T08:39:50.819-06:00

Russian Thinkers  by Isaiah Berlin “Science cannot destroy the consciousness of freedom, without which there is no morality and no art, but it can refute it.”  ― Isaiah Berlin, The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History Classic work on Russian literature and ideas. Included in his excellent collection of essays, Russian Thinkers, Isaiah Berlin has a fascinating essay,

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-79789558001608966942011-11-25T07:56:00.001-06:002011-11-25T07:58:28.690-06:00

Sonnet #104 CIV. To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed, Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold Have from the forests shook three summers' pride, Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd In process of the seasons have I seen, Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd, Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-57027976356916608072011-11-23T15:40:00.001-06:002011-11-23T15:45:24.585-06:00

Under the Net  by Iris Murdoch “I hate solitude, but i'm afraid of intimacy. The substance of my life is a private conversation with myself which to turn into a dialogue would be equivalent to self-destruction. The company which I need is the company which a pub or a cafe will provide. I have never wanted a communion of souls. It's already hard enough to tell the truth to oneself.”  ― Iris

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-50138790966163208592011-11-23T08:01:00.001-06:002011-11-23T08:43:47.264-06:00

Slaughterhouse-Five  by Kurt Vonnegut "Eheu, fugaces laburuntur anni," - Horace "Billy was having an adventure very common among people without power in time of war: He was trying to prove to a willfully deaf and blind enemy that he was interesting to hear and see. He kept silent until the lights went out at night, and then, when there had been a long silence containing nothing to echo, he

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-62757380445020992132011-11-22T08:35:00.001-06:002011-11-22T09:03:40.555-06:00

Benjamin Britten “It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature and everlasting beauty of monotony.”  ― Benjamin Britten Britten was born, by happy coincidence on this day, St. Cecilia's Day, in 1913 at the family home in

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-67906997929630362782011-11-18T18:06:00.001-06:002011-11-19T06:06:07.005-06:00

Let the Great World Spin  by Colum McCann “Some people think love is the end of the road, and if you're lucky enough to find it, you stay there. Other people say it just becomes a cliff you drive off, but most people who've been around awhile know it's just a thing that changes day by day, and depending on how much you fight for it, you get it, or you hold on to it, or you lose it, but

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-39178444416886645052011-11-17T06:14:00.001-06:002011-11-19T06:07:21.311-06:00

Capitalism and Freedom  by Milton Friedman “The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another.”  “The society

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-82870944745864786082011-11-16T11:39:00.001-06:002011-11-16T12:07:56.385-06:00

Some Novels of Jose Saramago “Words are like that, they deceive, they pile up, it seems they do not know where to go, and, suddenly, because of two or three or four that suddenly come out, simple in themselves, a personal pronoun, an adverb, an adjective, we have the excitement of seeing them coming irresistibly to the surface through the skin and the eyes and upsetting the composure of

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-25676611103901903312011-11-15T06:03:00.001-06:002011-11-15T06:15:29.824-06:00

A Reading Diary:  A Passionate Reader's Reflections  on a Year of Books  by Alberto Manguel  “Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know.”  - Alberto Manguel Life and literature are seldom closer than in the writings of Alberto Manguel. In this personal book he relates his experience of reading over the course of

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-9834796633304406042011-11-14T10:49:00.001-06:002011-11-14T11:55:03.240-06:00

On Rereading Books “There's nothing wrong with reading a book you love over and over. When you do, the words get inside you, become a part of you, in a way that words in a book you've read only once can't.” ― Gail Carson Levine, Writing Magic: Creating Stories that Fly Once again I have found an inspiring Lit Life column by Julia Keller.  In Sunday's Chicago Tribune she noted the new

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-14370162046569343272011-11-13T08:21:00.001-06:002011-11-13T08:37:56.486-06:00

Madame Bovary  by Gustave Flaubert "Before she married, she thought she was in love; but the happiness that should have resulted from that love, somehow had not come. It seemed to her that she must have made a mistake, have misunderstood in some way or another. And Emma tried hard to discover what, precisely, it was in life that was denoted by the words 'joy, passion, intoxication', which

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-49315430398617603032011-11-11T20:30:00.001-06:002011-11-11T20:35:05.906-06:00

The Information  by Martin Amis “Cities at night, I feel, contain men who cry in their sleep and then say Nothing. It's nothing. Just sad dreams. Or something like that...Swing low in your weep ship, with your tear scans and sob probes, and you would mark them. Women--and they can be wives, lovers, gaunt muses, fat nurses, obsessions, devourers, exes, nemeses--will wake and turn to these

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-55160534881949574722011-11-10T08:26:00.000-06:002011-12-09T12:25:29.844-06:00

Two Pavanes "The song is ended / But the melody lingers on."  -  Irving Berlin The pavane, pavan, paven, pavin, pavian, pavine, or pavyn (It. pavana, padovana; Ger. Paduana) is a slow processional dance common in Europe during the 16th century.   The origin of this term is not known with any certainty;  possibilities include the word being from Italian "[danza] Padovana", meaning "[dance]

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-70544539516570212052011-11-10T05:42:00.000-06:002011-11-10T05:42:34.524-06:00

Sister Carrie  by Theodore Dreiser “People in general attach too much importance to words. They are under the illusion that talking effects great results. As a matter of fact, words are, as a rule, the shallowest portion of all the argument. They but dimly represent the great surging feelings and desires which lie behind. When the distraction of the tongue is removed, the heart listens.”   

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-31352124694077040482011-11-08T09:07:00.000-06:002011-11-08T09:07:42.891-06:00

From Mozart to Tchaikovsky and Beyond In October of 1880 as Tchaikovsky was in the process of composing what would become his most famous overture, the 1812 Overture, op.49, he was also en-rapt in the creative process that would produce a very different composition;  the Serenade for Strings, op. 48.  A composer who battled continually with self-doubt, Tchaikavsky was unusually proud of the

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-9458097198298996292011-11-06T09:50:00.003-06:002011-11-08T21:08:14.510-06:00

Atchley  by David Green "Nothing is as central to our understanding of the world, and our conception of ourselves within the world, as the idea of presence.  Yet nothing is more elusive."(p 1) "P.S. And, by the way Landfall is not a diary of my time in Galicia, and I am not its narrator.  It's a novel." (From Atchley's letter to Fletcher dated February 10, 1998, p 32) "Think back to

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-68814745743882735132011-11-05T20:05:00.001-06:002011-11-05T20:05:47.252-06:00

Mrs. Bridge: A Novel  by Evan S. Connell "She spent a great deal of time staring into space, oppressed by the sense that she was waiting.  But waiting for what?  She did not know."  This is a beautifully written novel. Built through a mosaic of vignettes and episodes in the life of the titular character and her family, the novel gently limns the world of the aptly named Mrs. Bridge. She

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-24525493045194710712011-11-05T05:33:00.000-06:002011-11-13T13:08:08.657-06:00

Technology and Jane Austen “It is only a novel... or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language”  ― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey A lecture with the title, "

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-50443888639160080422011-11-04T09:27:00.001-06:002011-11-19T05:42:09.668-06:00

To Reach the Clouds:  My High Wire Walk  Between the Twin Towers  by Philippe Petit "I walk on the wire like a funambulist." This is a poetic book that takes your breath away with its photography. Even black and white photos of Petit walking the high wire between the two towers are dramatic and mesmerizing. Petit focuses on his six year journey from the moment he reads a newspaper

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-18603420204450682812011-11-01T13:59:00.000-06:002011-11-02T05:11:18.776-06:00

Dark Future Visions  “As Hegel put it, only when it is dark does the owl of Minerva begin its flight. Only in extinction is the collector comprehend.”  ― Walter Benjamin, Illuminations: Essays and Reflections The Road: Cormac McCarthy’s tenth novel won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2007 and was hailed as the ‘the first great masterpiece of the globally warmed generation’. It is the

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-38151623742874611412011-10-31T12:05:00.001-06:002011-10-31T12:10:24.278-06:00

Just in time for Halloween I have chosen two Histories and a Screenplay to share - I hope you will agree that the themes are appropriate. The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Enquiry  into the Salem Witch Trials by Marion Lena Starkey This is a riveting account of the Salem Witch Trials. Marion Starkey includes just the right amount of detail to portray all the elements of this

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-31779051949060185332011-10-30T08:44:00.000-06:002011-11-02T10:25:56.947-06:00

How Reading Changed My Life  by Anna Quindlen “To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him and travel in his company.”    - Andre Gide If I wrote this book it would be titled How Books Made My Life. For I do not remember a time when I was not surrounded by books, visiting the library and reading books. Anna Quindlen, in a sense, lived a

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-81466706260295648772011-10-30T04:31:00.000-06:002012-01-11T16:49:39.844-06:00

Galatea 2.2  by Richard Powers “Speech baffled my machine. Helen made all well-formed sentences. But they were hollow and stuffed--linguistic training bras. She sorted nouns from verbs, but, disembodied, she did not know the difference between thing and process, except as they functioned in clauses. Her predications were all shotgun weddings. Her ideas were as decorative as half-timber

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-61137598081646879832011-10-30T04:04:00.001-06:002011-10-30T04:05:22.087-06:00

Anomie       “One cannot long remain so absorbed in contemplation of emptiness without being increasingly attracted to it. In vain one bestows on it the name of infinity; this does not change its nature. When one feels such pleasure in non-existence, one's inclination can be completely satisfied only by completely ceasing to exist.” - Emile Durkheim Anomie is a term meaning "without Law" to

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-43423178002608848352011-10-29T19:38:00.000-06:002011-10-29T19:39:50.413-06:00

99 Novels: The Best in English Since 1939  by Anthony Burgess “The possession of a book becomes a substitute for reading it.”  ― Anthony Burgess If you like the fiction of Anthony Burgess you will probably enjoy his opinions about other authors. This is his very personal selection of the best English fiction from 1939 through 1983. The authors range from modernists like Joyce, Henry

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-89025368485306903672011-10-29T19:17:00.000-06:002011-10-29T19:17:43.373-06:00

Snow Falling on Cedars  by David Guterson “That the world was silent and cold and bare and that in this lay its terrible beauty”   David Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars This historical mystery novel covers the treatment of the Japanese in the Pacific Northwest during WW2 when out of prejudice they were interred in camps. The author, David Guterson, handles this disgraceful episode in

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-81211324471774886002011-10-28T04:00:00.000-06:002011-10-28T06:56:26.627-06:00

Gulliver's Travels:  An Authoritative Text by Jonathan Swift "Upon the whole, the behavior of these animals was so orderly and rational, so acute and judicious, that I at last concluded, they must needs be magicians, who thus had metamorphosed themselves upon some design, and seeing a stranger in the way, were resolved to divert themselves with him;  or perhaps were really amazed at the

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-53434223198305296332011-10-27T15:52:00.001-06:002011-10-29T10:58:50.802-06:00

The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume One, 1929-1964 Robert Silverberg, editor "a roster of outstanding stories" - Robert Silverberg Having just concluded my traversal of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume One, 1929-1964 I find myself reflecting on some of the themes.  I have previously commented on the intersection of the SF and Horror genres but there are other themes that we

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-35884496928381947752011-10-25T20:35:00.001-06:002011-10-25T20:35:18.320-06:00

A Moveable Feast  by Ernest Hemingway "All of the sadness of the city came suddenly with the first cold rains of winter, and there were no more tops to the high white houses as you walked but only the wet blackness of the street and the closed doors of the small shops, the herb sellers, the stationery and the newspaper shops, the midwife - second class - and the hotel where Verlaine and died

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-4712271819069338152011-10-24T15:54:00.000-06:002011-10-24T15:55:41.087-06:00

A Room of One's Own  by Virginia Woolf "Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others." - Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own (1929) I read this extended essay some years ago both for a class at the University of Chicago and for a weekend spent discussing some of the works of Virginia Woolf that also included To the Lighthouse and Three

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-8372816230606720192011-10-23T09:13:00.000-06:002011-10-23T09:13:12.059-06:00

Everything Was Possible:  The Birth of the Musical "Follies"  by Ted Chapin "I dim the lights And think about you Spend sleepless nights To think about you You said you loved . . . . me Or were you just being kind Or am I losing my mind"   Last week I saw a production of Follies at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. The direction and ensemble was excellent with a few standout

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-79191345119169485492011-10-22T05:04:00.000-06:002011-10-22T12:01:05.328-06:00

Tom Jones  by Henry Fielding "the excellence of the mental entertainment consists less in the subject than in the author's skill in well dressing it up." - Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Book 1, Chapter 1 Having read Sterne's Tristram Shandy and Homer's Odyssey to name two thematically related however chronologically different literary creations I should have been ready for Fielding's

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-21111625660181436872011-10-21T10:21:00.000-06:002011-10-21T10:26:04.831-06:00

The Unbearable Lightness of Being  by Milan Kundera “Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.”  ― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-52078284474750290802011-10-20T05:42:00.000-06:002011-10-20T05:42:15.150-06:00

The Death of Picasso: New  and Selected Writing  by Guy Davenport "Parmenides is wrong: the nothing he will not allow to be is time itself.  Time is the empty house that being inhabits.  It may well be the ghost of something in the beginning, before light became matter.  But it went away, so that something could be." ("The Death of Picasso")   Guy Davenport is a treasure for readers who

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-13466018217462388352011-10-18T16:44:00.000-06:002011-10-18T16:44:53.077-06:00

Human Accomplishment:  The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts  and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950  by Charles Murray "To be in the presence of greatness is exciting, even when we are not capable of appreciating all the nuances of the achievement.  The best has a magic about it . . ." Charles Murray surveys a very large topic and provides both direction and structure for it. The immensity of

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-17798065147735759552011-10-16T15:31:00.000-06:002011-10-16T15:31:21.897-06:00

The City and the Stars  by Arthur C. Clarke "Like a glowing jewel, the city lay upon the breast of the desert.  Once it had known change and alteration, but now Time passed it by.  Night and day fled across the desert's face, but in the streets of Diaspar it was always afternoon . . ." This is a classic science fiction novel from one of the masters. Arthur C. Clarke has written more

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-36256195828199591912011-10-13T15:39:00.000-06:002011-10-13T15:41:30.725-06:00

SF and Horror "It did no good to wonder about it.  Nothing at all did any good --- except to live as they must live.  Must always, always live, if Anthony would let them." - Jerome Bixby, "It's a Good Life" I am three-quarters of the way through the anthology The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume One and I have been surprised that there are several stories which straddle the boundary

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-16636885312982437202011-10-10T08:55:00.002-06:002011-11-25T07:55:20.108-06:00

Sonnet 84 LXXXIV. Who is it that says most? which can say more Than this rich praise, that you alone are you? In whose confine immured is the store Which should example where your equal grew. Lean penury within that pen doth dwell That to his subject lends not some small glory; But he that writes of you, if he can tell That you are you, so dignifies his story, Let him but copy what in

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-59976095818898921012011-10-03T20:36:00.000-06:002011-10-04T11:37:17.104-06:00

RED by John Logan "Silence is so accurate." "These pictures deserve compassion." Rothko:  "Now tell me, what do you see?   Ken:  "Red." Yesterday I attended a production of John Logan's Tony Award-winning play Red at the Goodman Theatre.  Directed by Robert Falls and starring Edward Gero as Mark Rothko and Patrick Andrews as Ken, his apprentice/assistant.  This was a brilliant and

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-11158919105164314582011-10-03T10:17:00.000-06:002011-10-03T10:17:35.928-06:00

"Americans, whose language when talking business is clear and dry, without the slightest ornament, and of such extreme simplicity as often to be vulgar, easily turn bombastic when they attempt a poetic style." - Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America 488 [1840] (J.P. Mayer ed. & George Lawrence trans., 1966)

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-77748832907170738052011-10-02T04:02:00.000-06:002011-10-02T04:02:08.027-06:00

Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac “A letter is a soul, so faithful an echo of the speaking voice that to the sensitive it is among the richest treasures of love.” ― Honoré de Balzac, Père Goriot Another wonderful translation by Burton Raffel, this is a faithful and readable edition of one of Balzac's most popular novels. It is one of the finest and most characteristic examples of Balzac's

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-308452835250651332011-09-30T11:01:00.000-06:002011-09-30T11:02:50.035-06:00

Nature Unveiling Herself to Science This statue was commissioned in 1889 to decorate the new Faculty of Medicine of Bordeaux. A young woman, the allegory of nature, raises a slow movement of the sails of which it is wrapped. After completing the first version of white marble for the decoration of the building, Barrias conceives a second, full color, for the staircase at the Conservatoire

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-10091484512021419062011-09-30T10:49:00.000-06:002011-09-30T10:49:13.705-06:00

The Salterton Trilogy  by Robertson Davies "Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness." - Robertson Davies Salterton is a

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-76168619058167232062011-09-30T10:24:00.001-06:002011-09-30T10:25:14.772-06:00

When do we start “acting gay”?  Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing  two men holding guns than holding hands?  ~Ernest Gaines A Minnesota school district is facing a Department of Justice investigation and a private lawsuit over its alleged failure to combat anti-gay bullying. One of the student-plaintiffs is a 14-year-old boy who hasn’t declared his sexual

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-22359589746863781942011-09-29T14:54:00.002-06:002011-09-29T14:55:36.946-06:00

The Fragile Inheritance of Ideas For as children tremble and fear everything in the blind darkness,  so we in the light sometimes fear what is no more to be feared  than the things children in the dark hold in terror and imagine will come true.  - Lucretius, On the Nature of Things When paper crumbles into dust  We discover what humans must Believe and hold closely, tightly,

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-12510286257445124942011-09-27T07:17:00.000-06:002011-09-27T07:19:04.962-06:00

The Oresteia of Aeschylus:  A New Translation by Ted Hughes  by Aeschylus "And God gave Apollo The mind and the tongue  To speak the truth of God to mankind." - Aeschylus (The Eumenides) This is a modern (circa 1999) translation of one of the greatest of the Greek Tragedies that has survived. It is even rarer in that it is a complete trilogy which was common in the age of the great Greek

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-26427791063708714472011-09-26T16:35:00.000-06:002011-10-04T16:36:10.797-06:00

A Walk in the Woods by Lee Blessing Yesterday I attended another smashing production by TimeLine Theatre Company.  Directed by Nick Bowling and featuring TimeLine Company members Janet Ulrich Brooks and David Parkes. This was a tale of two arms negotiators who literally went for "a walk in the woods".    The events of the play were inspired by the real-life talks between Paul Nitze and Yuli

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-42923318641137167162011-09-25T20:43:00.003-06:002011-09-26T03:59:11.926-06:00

Reading Science Fiction I recently read the first five stories collected in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One.  While I enjoyed "A Martian Odyssey" by Stanley Weinbaum the most, all of the stories were excellent and many of them demonstrated interesting features.  In our class discussion the connections with classical literature was noted for several of the stories starting

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-17918864139719736922011-09-24T08:06:00.002-06:002011-09-24T08:06:18.557-06:00

Life of Dr. Johnson "What I consider as the peculiar value of the following work, is, the quantity it contains of Johnson's conversation;  which is universally acknowledged to have been eminently instructive  and entertaining;  and of which the specimens that I have given upon a former occasion, have been received with so much approbation, that I have good grounds for supposing that the

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-25675436474140525232011-09-23T06:55:00.000-06:002011-09-23T07:01:48.156-06:00

WORDS to Claudia Words -- Wild words -- Wonderful words! Words that delight -- Words that inspire. Words with the might -- Words with the fire. We who are moved, We who aspire To learn and to grow -- We wonder at words. We are moved by the insight And touched by the feeling Of nurturing wonder at Sounds in the twilight. Sounds so wild in the roaring

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-53135307059425811522011-09-20T20:20:00.000-06:002011-09-20T20:20:07.825-06:00

Will Grayson, Will Grayson  by John Green & David Levithan “I think about how much depends upon a best friend. When you wake up in the morning you swing your legs out of bed and you put your feet on the ground and you stand up. You don’t scoot to the edge of the bed and look down to make sure the floor is there. The floor is always there…" This is a novel that makes me realize how times

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-10271857207419890032011-09-20T07:25:00.000-06:002011-09-20T19:45:30.027-06:00

Literary Brooklyn:  The Writers of Brooklyn  and the Story of American City Life  by Evan Hughes “Night was a wonderful time in Brooklyn in the 1930s. Air conditioning was unknown except in movie houses, and so was television. There was nothing to keep one in the house. Furthermore, few people owned automobiles, so there was nothing to carry one away. That left the streets and the stoops.

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5231952.post-5403446982034175382011-09-19T06:49:00.000-06:002011-09-19T06:49:50.731-06:00

Ubik by Philip K. Dick “The pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Parmenides taught that the only things that are real are things which never change... and the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus taught that everything changes. If you superimpose their two views, you get this result: Nothing is real.”  ― Philip K. Dick The novel Ubik is dazzling and complex as Philip K. Dick takes you on a

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561320676355168336noreply@blogger.com4