“They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible. But it is never easy.”
Continue reading "Virgins on a Honeymoon: A Review of Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach" »
Well, to continue my poetry kick, I was at B&N a week ago and found a new anthology of Spanish poems, called The Golden Age: Poems of the Spanish Renaissance. It caught my attention because it is an area I know little about. Translated by Edith Grossman, who did the recent Don Quixote translation, put this books together. There is even an intro by Billy Collins. It is a slim volume though at 192 pages, I would like something a little heftier.
One thing I do really like about it is that the Spanish is on one page, with the translation on the facing page. That is something I wish would be done more often with translating poetry. You can retain and enjoy the sound and musicality of the original, even if you don't know the language. I definately will be adding this to my collection when it comes in a paperback.
It's been interesting that a lot of hits to my blog come from Google searches that relate to my literature papers, London by Blake and Frankenstein by Shelley. So I present the next in my series. This is an interpretation of the short story "Clay" by James Joyce which is part of the collection Dubliners. So we get the usual themes of paralysis, epiphany, etc... so if you like, leave a comment, or any feedback that would improve my work. Anyways hope you enjoy.
In “Clay,” by James Joyce, the first paragraph offers a simple detail, “These brambracks seemed uncut; but if you went closer you would see that they had been cut…” (Joyce, Dubliners 95). This ordinary cake at the beginning offers the reader a guide on how to view the subsequent story, where things that may seem a certain way on the surface, can be revealed to be something different upon a closer look. The protagonist Maria cut the cake, thus offering a connection between Maria’s action and the revealed nature of the cake. Applying this metaphor for Maria’s life, the reader may unearth the possibility of another life, a secret life, that isn’t apparent on the surface, but changes upon acute inspection.
Over at the NYTBR, Sam Tanenhaus sent a letter of request to a couple hundred prominent writers (define that, Sam) to ask what are the best American novels of the last 25 years. The top of the list is Beloved by Toni Morrison. Runner-ups were dominated by Philip Roth (6 novels), Don DeLillo (3 novels), John Updike (4 novels), Cormac McCarthy (4 novels), along with a few others. So . . . . . why should I care? The list is interesting, but not surprising by a long shot. Of, course genre fiction makes no appearance, unless you count McCarthy as part of the western genre. I am a huge fan of Philip Roth, but it's an obvious choice for such a list. But I am absolutely shocked that there was only one other woman named, Marilynne Robinson for Housekeeping. Why no Joyce Carol Oates? who I would argue outshines both Robinson and Morrison. I would also include Thomas Pynchon and John Crowley as other overlooked choices. It would be interesting what books were listed by the "prominent writers" but didn't garner enough pats on the back. Oh, well, I guess the list is good for marketing purposes in order to sell more books and maybe introduce them to new readers.
I thought I would post the occassional paper from school. I would be interested in what could make them better for furture developement. This one is from a recent English course.
London
I wander thro' each charter'd street,
where the charter'd Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every Man,
In every Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear.
How the Chimney-sweeper's cry
Every black'ning Church appals,
And the hopeless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down palace walls
But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infant's tear
And blights with plagues the marriage hearse.
“London” by William Blake is a lyric ballad that pushes up against the boundaries of the form, expressing the tension, sounds, and meanings of a degenerate city. The poem is in four quatrains in iambic tetrameter, with a basic rhyme scheme starting a/b/a/b. The poem, originally published in Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, show the reader a dark and sad city, a large subject to tackle, and attempts to contain it in a traditional ballad form. This helps illustrates the tension in the poem’s voice, expressing sounds and anger that escapes beyond the boundaries of the poem itself. As Peter Ackroyd remarked, “Blake’s insistence upon tight rhymes and forms is a way of suggesting the limits of the medium he is employing,” (Ackroyd 141). These limits of form help to express the limits and restrictions of London.
The authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail are suing their own publisher Random House, who published The DaVinci Code, which they say infringes on their copyright. Even though their book has made a comeback because of the DaVinci effect, seems they want a bigger piece of the pie.
Can non-fiction, even conspiracy theory history, not be made available to writers of fiction? What seems funny is that there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of other books that have taken the Priory of Sion theory as a fact, and made a good coin in the process. The authors are arguing that their book is "historical conjecture setting out the author's hypothesis," and is not about "historical facts," therefore the ideas are protected by copyright. Well, I guess they should have published it as fiction then.
Since I was thinking about sci-fi pulps, I've been a mood to read some classic sf that I've never got around to read. So I decided to pick up Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein. It's a book that has always interested me, but I have never had the interest to read Heinlein, I'm more of an Asimov person. But since so many people seem to praise Heiny as the greastest sf writer, I thought I would give this one try. It will be a nice change of pace, after reading Midsummer Night's Dream. Thinking of English class, my next two books (Dubliners and Frankenstein) I've already had in previous classes, so my reading demands will be a little relaxed for awhile. So what classic sf would you suggest? Any favorites?
Are you accused, when reading a book, that you are trying to escape from real life (or some other trite accusation? I just came across this recently, and it made me smile.
C.S. Lewis once asked Tolkien, "What class of men would you expect to be most preoccupied with, and most hostile to, the idea of escape?"
Tolkien answered, "Jailers."
In a way, pulp dime novels have never gone away, they have transformed into the Kings, Grishams, and Steeles of the bestseller lists. Just fun, entertaining fiction. But recently I've been buying the books in the new retro-pulp series Hard Case Crime, which reprints hard boiled crimes stories (and some new original stories). And a couple of days ago I saw that Galaxy Press is going to do a retro style to the old L. Ron Hubbard pulps from the 40s and 50s. Is it a start of a new trend? If so, I would love to see a series of science fiction and horror reprints in a retro style, maybe like the old Ace double paperbacks. If I had the money, I would be tempted to try such a venture myself. Do you go back and read any pulps? What would you like to see?
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