Islands by The XX

Islands by The XX

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This is a perfect song to have on low volume while reading... Add it to a "reading" playlist. Beautiful lyrics.

Brief memory from the Beautiful City of Portland... Starring: BOOKS! What Else?

Last year, when browsing Powell's City of Books in downtown Portland, OR, I was in the position of hearing a humorous but enlightening conversation between an employee and a fellow browser making an inquiry at the literature section information booth.

"Uh, I'm having trouble finding The DaVinci Code here"

The employee could not have given a more scornful reply. "That's because that book, isn't in literature", she said. "It's in mystery".

Interesting photos of some really fascinating texts....

The one in fragments is a poem found from the poet, Sappho, a Greek poet from the island of Lesbos. Her poetry is mostly quoted in other ancient Greek authors, but is still vastly important to the history of female authors, and to poetry in general.

The second document is a letter of Rene Descartes, originally stolen from France, and found this past week at Haverford College in Pennsylvania. The head of the college is returning it to France. Sometimes the true thoughts of an author may lie in their letters...

On completion of Eliot's Wasteland and Pound's Cantos...

So... The summary of this literary experience is as follows: I must, must, must prove that The Wasteland is not solely about despair, since that seems to be the general sentiment. This is my new occupation, and final essay for American Literature.

Regarding Ezra Pound:

He definitely was not crazy. There's no way someone could write the Cantos while actually crazy... or is it the only way someone could write it?.... hmm...

Also, I only read excerpts of the Cantos, and so feel that I have not experienced the text enough to make any sense... yet. Reading an authors lifelong work takes time... obviously.

Le Vin Des Amants (Lover's Wine)

Aujourd'hui l'espace est splendide!

Sans mors, sans eperons, sans bride,

Partons a cheval sur le vin

Pour un ciel feerique et divin!

Comme deux anges que torture

Une implacable calenture,

Dans le bleu cristal du matin

Suivons le mirage lointain!

Mollement balances sur l'aile

Du tourbillon intelligent,

Dans un delire parallele,

Ma soeur, cote a cote nageant,

Nous furions sans repos ni treves

Vers le paradis de mes reves!

the importance of books

"When he saw that this slender resource was failing him, he gave up his garden and left it uncultivated. Before that, long before he had given up the two eggs and bit of beef he occasionally used to eat. He dined on bread and potatoes. He had sold his last furniture, then all his spare bedding and clothing, then his collections of plants and his prints; but he still had his most precious books..."

-Les Miserables, p.1044

Victor Hugo

A Bookstore Experience: Starring Emerson (Ralph Waldo)

I went to a local bookstore last fall to pick up my copy of Emerson's essays for an American Lit class I had signed up for. I had walked into the store with three important American classics on a small blue sticky note. Realizing that the bookstore's enormity and layout may jeopardize my keen book-finding sense, I approached the cashier for some advice, asking him where I could find Emerson.

"You mean, Ralph Waldo?" He asked. I tried not to show the surprised look on my face, which was plainly inquiring how and why he was on a first name basis with this great American author... now dead, some 130 years.

"Yes," I replied, patiently paying attention as he directed me first to the literature section, then changing his mind, telling me that I would most likely find this author in the small shelf in the corner marked, PHILOSOPHY. "Okay," I said, confirming that I had watched him point to various parts of the bookstore. Before I could walk away, however, he decided to confirm his hypothesis with a fellow bookstore employee.

"Oh no! Definitely not philosophy," she said, with more emphasis than was probably necessary. 'You should look in literature... or maybe essays... Or," she nodded towards yet another rack of books, "you could check anthologies".

She then proceeded to walk me through each of these sections, directing me through row upon row of books, despite the big, black plastic signs adorning each shelf.

"Thanks," I said, as she resumed her job of shelving various literary classics, Melville, Tolstoy, and Bronte--or maybe I should say, Herman, Leo, and Charlotte.

"No problem," she replied, "that's what I'm here for".