Hmm …

… ‘href="https://archive.is/ykTJY">Nothing is real but sex and death’ — the private world of John Updike (Hat tip, Dave Lull) can't say I agree. sex is feat (or at least can be) and death is, well, inevitable. But life has a good deal more to offer than just those.

Rehab report …

I remain in bed at Saunders House, a very nice rehab facility. My right leg feels much better. So discharge may be near. As someone who has been remarkably healthy throughout my life, being an invalid is a peculiar experience. And an enlightening one. So many people are so kind. This afternoon I shall be ensconced in front of the stationay bike, which I enjoy. Soon there will be a meeting to decide if I am ready for discharge. Pray that I am. I long to be at home.

A poem for this morning …

… Silvia Guerra — Presumption of Heaven

A poem for this morning …

… Brad Gooch — H.

Hmm …

… As we grow out of intellectual adolescence, religion’s popularity soars (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

In case you wondered …

… Bob Dylan’s Superpower is That He Doesn’t Get Embarrassed (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

Something to think on…

… Inspiring quotes

Listen and read …

… Mind To Me A Kingdom Is - Edward de Vere/William Byrd | Dedicated to Alexander Waugh ( hat tip, Dave Lull)

And the winner is

… Winner of the Petrona Award 2025 announced ( Hat tip, Dave Lull)

A poem for this morning …

… Frank O’Hara — Lisztiana, Much Later

Resolution …

i have decided to blog on a more regular basis — observations, opinions, and the like. I have been in the hospital since the operation on Monday to remove bone fragments from my hip, the result of a fall. So I have plenty of time to reflect. I spent most of last year in the hospital and rehab. I had a water retention problem that was finally resolved. And now a fall in my bedroom haslanded me back in the hospital. More later.

A poem for today …

… John Yau — O Pinyin Sonnet

Natalia Ginzburg

 

I was recently recommended the work of the Italian writer Natalia Ginzburg. I didn't know much, if anything, about her, but I was intrigued, and so this week read and finished her Little Virtues. Separated in two parts, this collection of essays and reflections focuses, first, on place, especially on Ginzburg's sense for England, Italy, and Europe in the post-war period. The second part shifts its emphasis to what Ginzburg calls 'human relationships.' This section is primarily interested in experiences of youth, family identity, and friendship. Between the two, I far preferred the first, which contains a number prescient observations regarding English society, in particular. That section also achieves something unusual in terms of its narrative structure: here, Ginzburg constructs a narrative in the first-person, but the effect is something closer to what Rachel Cusk has more recently attempted: a sort of auto-fiction with the author seemingly at the center, but also hovering above, an observer to an intimate unfolding of events. The second portion of Little Virtues read a bit too didactically for me, with a number of suggestions regarding parenting, for instance, which seemed too prescriptive (and, in some ways, too political). That said, though, the whole of Little Virtues was a refreshing read, and a potent reminder of life's wonders. The final sentence, often quoted, says it all: a love of life does, indeed, beget a love of life.

Recommended …

sort of — “[At Swim-Two-Birds is] just the book to give to your sister, if she is a dirty, boozey girl.” – Dylan Thomas on Flann O’Brien’s masterpiece (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

Something to think on …

… inspiring Quotes

Marilynne Robinson

 

It's been many years since I read Gilead, Marilynne Robinson's celebrated novel of history, faith, and mortality. I never loved that novel -- at least not in the way the critics suggested I might. But now, after all those years, I've returned to Robinson: this time via her first novel, Housekeeping. 

Here, again, the critics would have you believe you've encountered a masterpiece. And in some sense, I suppose, you have: the first half of Housekeeping, which establishes a sense of time and place, is highly effective. There's a clear evocation of the American west -- along with its history, people, and struggle. Indeed, struggle is at the heart of this novel: both against the land, but also against the strictures of society.

The tragedy which unfolds at the end of the novel is meant -- in my reading -- to bring the book full circle, to establish a link between it and a separate human struggle which starts the book. These episodes are different in their severity and context, but they share something which Robinson reinforces throughout the novel: water. This is a theme, a trope, a framing which guides Housekeeping. 

If I was disappointed by the second half of Housekeeping it's because Robinson introduces -- as she does in Gilead, too -- a secondary narrative drawing heavily from religious ideas and texts. I understand why she does this -- in Gilead, especially -- but here, in Housekeeping, it did not seem necessary: and the result was a powerful story which seems to have lost at least some of its momentum. (Faith is not a central theme in Housekeeping, and the inclusion of Robinson's secondary narrative seemed extraneous.) 

I don't want to be overly negative, though: by any measure, Housekeeping is a succesful, powerful novel. For a glimpse of the American temperament, the American frontier, and the development of the American economy -- for these concepts alone, the novel is worth the time. It is a book very much of individual characters in juxtaposition to forces larger than themselves.

Just so you know …

i won't be blogging todafor a while. i'm in the hospital awaiting an operartion.

Another passing …

… Ashleigh Brilliant (1933–2025) (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

In memoriam …

… John Coyne, RIP ( Hat tip, Dave Lull)

Congratulations …

… Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai wins the Nobel Prize in literature

Thomas Bernhard

 

I recently finished The Loser, Thomas Bernhard's celebrated novel of artistry, excellence, and failure. At its core, this is a book about competition and comparison: about how, despite ourselves, we cannot avoid the tendency to differentiate, to distinguish. Bernard's focus is on elite piano players and their evolution over time and space. To label one of the three "a loser" is a bit of a stretch as that player is himself an exceptional talent. But compared with the virtuoso, with the genius, he can be nothing, at that level, but a failure. The plot of The Loser is not, though, what has attracted attention: instead, is is Bernhard's style, which fluctuates between the present and a sort of perpetual past. Bernhard captures that sense of the past in a number of ways: via memory, recollection, and imagination; but mostly, through an unusual interplay of syntax, repetition, and conjugating verbs in all forms of the past tense. A character had done, or was doing, or did do, or will have had to have done: it's almost to the point of Gertrude Stein, but that is not, in my reading, Bernhard's objective. Instead, he seems to be making a point about our ability as humans to construct entire stories from memory, from supposition. And even if I found the style here a bit, well, a bit gimmicky at times, I take the point that events are, by their very nature, transformed into the past, and that history, no matter how recent, can only be made real through the articulation of memories. In this way, at least, Bernhard packs a considerable punch: his story, told largely in the past tense, becomes immediately present, casting a double sense of sorrow: for what was, and for what now is. 

A poem for this morning …

… Jacques Dupin — Lichens

Remembering Guy Davenport …

… The Word Dear Alone Hangs on the Upper Verge' (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

Happy and sad …

… Thoughts on moving houses (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

Remembering …

… Phillies team that everyone doubted found its way to first World Series win

A poem for this morning …

… Priscilla Becker —/My Stint Among the Beloved

Sad —.and infuriating …

… The Murder of a South Philly Barber

For sale …

… A Delancey Street townhouse filled with 100,000 books is a bibliophile’s dream — and an epic estate sale (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

A poem for this morning …

… Octavio Paz — Target Practice

Something to think on …

… Inspiring Quotes

A poem for this morning …

… Octavio Paz — Letter of Testimony Cantata