currently: Thomas Pynchon
Just finished Margaret Atwood's Bodily Harm. At it speaks to how extraordinary she is that even though to my mind it is not her strongest work, it is still soaked in that skeptical intelligence which is perhaps uniquely hers.
Also, got a ticket to see her at City Arts and Lectures in October and I am over. the. moon.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
I almost forgot
"Literature isn't innocent."
- The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer
- The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer
revisiting the moors
currently: Emily Brontë
A re-read of Wuthering Heights is proving to be infinitely rewarding. While the endless wallowing, raging, self-defeating, tempestuous characters grated on my pragmatic, 17-year-old nerves in high school, I now find them incredibly amusing. Perhaps because now I realize that much of the drooping, moaning, pining, and plotting is carried out by people my age or younger. In high school, I couldn't understand why they wouldn't behave rationally. Now, with some distance from my teenage years, it's clear that Emily Brontë knew what everyone knows: teenagers aren't rational.
Also, the almost total lack of sex is fascinating. Sex must happen, because there are children. But there are remarkably few children. They seem to exist more to further the plot than to prove the consummation of their parents. But the big question: did Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff ever have sex? is impossible to answer definitively. It seems as if they would have - they did everything else they wanted. However, there is absolutely zero evidence to support their having done so. All that pent up frustration! Yikes!
Tangentially...Ever wonder about the umlaut over the e in Brontë? I did. Wikipedia has this to offer on the subject:
"At some point, the father of the sisters, Patrick Brontë (born Brunty), conceived of the alternate spelling with the diaeresis over the terminal "e" to indicate that the name is of two syllables. It is not known for certain what motivated him to do so, and multiple theories exist to account for the change. He may have wished to hide his humble origins. As a man of letters, he would have been familiar with classical Greek and may have chosen the name after the cyclops Brontes (literally 'thunder')."
Also, thanks go, as they often do, to Monty Python for this somewhat abbreviated version of the story.
A re-read of Wuthering Heights is proving to be infinitely rewarding. While the endless wallowing, raging, self-defeating, tempestuous characters grated on my pragmatic, 17-year-old nerves in high school, I now find them incredibly amusing. Perhaps because now I realize that much of the drooping, moaning, pining, and plotting is carried out by people my age or younger. In high school, I couldn't understand why they wouldn't behave rationally. Now, with some distance from my teenage years, it's clear that Emily Brontë knew what everyone knows: teenagers aren't rational.
Also, the almost total lack of sex is fascinating. Sex must happen, because there are children. But there are remarkably few children. They seem to exist more to further the plot than to prove the consummation of their parents. But the big question: did Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff ever have sex? is impossible to answer definitively. It seems as if they would have - they did everything else they wanted. However, there is absolutely zero evidence to support their having done so. All that pent up frustration! Yikes!
Tangentially...Ever wonder about the umlaut over the e in Brontë? I did. Wikipedia has this to offer on the subject:
"At some point, the father of the sisters, Patrick Brontë (born Brunty), conceived of the alternate spelling with the diaeresis over the terminal "e" to indicate that the name is of two syllables. It is not known for certain what motivated him to do so, and multiple theories exist to account for the change. He may have wished to hide his humble origins. As a man of letters, he would have been familiar with classical Greek and may have chosen the name after the cyclops Brontes (literally 'thunder')."
Also, thanks go, as they often do, to Monty Python for this somewhat abbreviated version of the story.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
chase (file under: cut to the)
currently: Roberto Bolaño
who, as it happens, is stomping all over Kerouac and Beat literature in general like so many overripe grapes and making some damn good wine while he's at it. It's called The Savage Detectives.
who, as it happens, is stomping all over Kerouac and Beat literature in general like so many overripe grapes and making some damn good wine while he's at it. It's called The Savage Detectives.
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