Monday, September 16, 2024
Sunday, September 15, 2024
Just so you know …
I happen to be in the hospital. My legs sort of gave out yesterday and the aide who cleans my apartment called the ER people. Seems there were some serious issues. But I appear to be on the mend.
Friday, September 13, 2024
Karl Ove Knausgaard
I've written before on the blog about Karl Ove Knausgaard -- in particular about his seasonal quartet, which, taken together, amounts to an excellent read. I've also written about his essays on Edvard Munch, which have lots of interesting things to say about that tormented painter. Recently, I've made my way through another of Knausgaard's works of non-fiction, In The Land of the Cyclops, a collection of essays focused on philosophy, literature, and art.
I should say at the start that, for me, Cyclops doesn't hold a candle to the seasonal quarter: I recognize, of course, that they are different in terms of tone, structure, and objective, but there was something about Cyclops which felt less convincing: as if this were just one man's sense for a book or painting. And it is. But in other essays or reflections by Knausgaard, that sense, that observation, assumes an oddly universal quality: and while Knausgaard may be writing about an apple, say, or a trip through Norway, the effect is one of transcendence: as if that journey, that piece of fruit, were the center of the universe. This experience was often missing from Cyclops.
That said, there are essays here which are to be celebrated, including those on Cindy Sherman and Gustave Flaubert. Another, on the Norwegian novelist, Knut Hamsun, features a number of unexpected and illuminated insights. Don't get me wrong, there were moments of revelation in some of these essays, and I walked away with a greater understanding, say, for Sherman than when I started the book. But I was expecting something more: perhaps more intimate, perhaps more lasting. Still, I'll continue to read Knausgaard because I think his approach to writing and to the contemporary moment is something worthy of exploration.
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
Monday, September 09, 2024
Something to think on …
The great tragedy of atheists is that they walk through this world and have no one to thank.
— Leo Tolstoy, born on this date in 1828
Sunday, September 08, 2024
Blogging note …
I took a fall today and had use the emergency device on my wrist to have them get me off the floor. They also gave me pretty good checkup, which proved ver encouraging. Anyway, I won’t b blogging much today,
Saturday, September 07, 2024
Friday, September 06, 2024
On Henry James
This is too good -- from the LRB:
"Imagine a typical Jamesian plot (or imbroglio as he preferred to call it, ‘plot’ being a ‘nefarious name’): an innocent American comes to Europe and is befriended by a Europeanised American and an older European woman (almost certainly a contessa or a princess, but titles are optional). The innocent American falls half or three-quarters in love with the contessa, and/or a shade homoerotically with the Europeanised American, or with the relationship between the two. Much conversation follows, and much ‘flirtation’ as we might be tempted to call it, in which the American is ‘seduced’ (culturally) by his hosts and maybe wants to be ‘seduced’ (physically) by the ambient culture. (Are you noticing all these adverbs and inverted commas, by the way?) Then the American sees the contessa with the Europeanised American arm in arm in the park or, perhaps, in the Soane Museum, when they have said they will be elsewhere. And at this point the climax of the Jamesian imbroglio occurs, a point of recognition at which a more vulgar author might have the Innocent American exclaim: ‘OMG. They’re fucking?’ At that moment the ‘centre’ does not hold, realising as it does that what it had admiringly thought to be the case is, ‘really’, not the case at all. James talks of the ‘original grossness of readers’. But there is an ‘original grossness’ at the heart of most of his exquisite fables: there is a thing going on, and probably a dirty thing, that the people in the fiction won’t or can’t see because their window is smeary or they are looking in the wrong direction."
Something to think on …
You cannot imagine at all how much you interest God; He is interested in you as if there were no one else on earth.
— julian Green, born on this date in 1900p
Thursday, September 05, 2024
A poem …
Your Octopussy
With eight arms I could love you better.
You could call me your Octopussy.
With eight arms things would go swimmingly.
And how intriguing, if we would boogie.
If I was a blow-fish I could do it better.
Of any sex-fish I could do it best.
With ocean beings it's much more juicy
In fact, in fiction, and in jest.
With a fish tail you could catch me better.
Reel me in hook, line, and sinker.
Could you love me transmogrified?
We all do change, with a flop, and a whimper.
Never a dull moment when your out to sea.
For now, be happy with your Octapussy.
by Jennifer Knox
Love,
Wednesday, September 04, 2024
Something to think on …
One must live as if it would be forever, and as if one might die each moment. Always both at once.,
— Mary Renault, born on this date in 1995
Tuesday, September 03, 2024
Monday, September 02, 2024
Sunday, September 01, 2024
Something ro think on …
The single fact of existing is already a true happiness.
— Blaise Cenrars, born on this date in 1887
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