25 March 2008
Committing to Reading
)Published on March 25th, 2008 @ 10:59:14 am, using 1574 words, 557 views
At the beginning of the year I made a resolution to read more than I have in recent years - to get back to my lost and now target voracity. Reading adds ease to my own writing, it showers me with unsolicited and welcome ideas. Such resolutions, however, always end up getting lost in the hustle and bustle of every day life. So I thought I might give myself an extra push in terms of establishing some discipline, in the form of this post.
Below is a modest list of books I have on a waiting list and that I would very much like to get through in the coming months for one reason or another. I plan on updating this post regularly, crossing out the titles and adding some favorite passages as I finish each of them.
The Romantic Movement
Valis
Me talk pretty one day
The Invention of Solitude
Ignorance
Ensaio sobre a cegueira
Prague
Though Eric read many books, it wasn’t unfair to say that this activity was free of all curiosity, for he read not in order to discover things, but primarily so as to avoid stumbling upon them. He wasn’t looking for congruence; if he was fearful, the last thing he wished to read about was his own fear. He might have gained some relief from the fear of an African arms dealer pursued by a crack Marine unit - a fear perhaps, but not his fear.
(The Romantic Movement - Alain de Botton)
—— ∫ ——
…she contained more than one version of herself depending on the people she was with. And what was more, she recognized that some of these versions were better, more her, than others.
(The Romantic Movement - Alain de Botton)
—— ∫ ——
‘I’ve been looking at this one photo,’ he said, ‘ but there is something here that I am not making out.’
He pointed to a picture of the actress walking down a California beach with an unidentified friend who held the baby against her chest. A large dog ran just ahead of the women and splashed in the surf.
‘I can see that Jodie Foster is holding in one hand a leash,’ Pascal said. ‘But what is it she is carrying in the other hand? I have asked many people, but nobody knows for sure.’
I brought the magazine close to my face and studied it for a moment. ‘Well,’ I said, ’she appears to be carrying a plastic bag of dogshit.’
‘Go out of here, you nut.’ He seemed almost angry. ‘Jodie Foster is the biggest star. She won an Academy Award two times, so why would she like to carry a bag that is full of shit? Nobody would do that but a crazy person.’ He called to his four employees. ‘Get over her and listen to what he’s saying, the crazy nut.’
In trying to communicate why an Academy Award-winning actress might walk down the beach carrying a plastic bag full of dog feces, I got the sort of lump in my throat that other people might get while singing their national anthem. It was the pride one can feel only when, far from home and surrounded by a captive audience, you are called upon to explain what is undoubtedly the single greatest thing about our country.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘it goes like this…’
(I pledge allegiance to the bag - Me talk pretty one day - David Sedaris)
—— ∫ ——
Each time he goes out, he takes his thoughts with him, and during his absence the room gradually empties of his efforts to inhabit it. When he returns, he has to begin the process all over again, and that takes work, real spiritual work. Considering his physical condition after the climb (chest heaving like a bellows, legs as tight and heavy as tree trunks), this inner struggle takes all that much longer to get started. In the interim, in the void between the moment he opens the door and the moment he begins to reconquer the emptiness, his mind flails in a wordless panic.
(The Invention of Solitude - Paul Auster)
—— ∫ ——
He has spent the greater part of his adult life walking through cities, many of them foreign. He has spent the greater part of his adult life hunched over a small rectangle of wood, concentrating on an even smaller rectangle of white paper. He has spent the greater part of his adult life standing up and sitting down and pacing back and forth. These are the limits of the known world. He listens. When he hears something, he begins to listen again. Then he waits. He watches and waits. And when he begins to see something, he watches and waits again. These are the limits of the known world.
(The Invention of Solitude - Paul Auster)
—— ∫ ——
Earlier, by their total uninterest in her experience abroad, they amputated twenty years from her life. Now, with this interrogation, they are trying to stitch her old past onto her present life. As if they were amputating her forearm and attaching the hand directly to the elbow; as if they were amputating her calves and joining her feet to her knees.
(Ignorance - Milan Kundera)
—— ∫ ——
And you know what, Sylvie - now I understand: I could go back and live with them, but there’d be a condition: I’d have to lay my whole life with you, with all of you, with the French, solemnly on the altar of the homeland and set fire to it. Twenty years of my life spent abroad would go up in smoke, in a sacrificial ceremony. And the women would sing and dance with me around the fire, with beer mugs raised high in their hands. That’s the price I’d have to pay to be pardoned. To be accepted. To become one of them again.
(Ignorance - Milan Kundera)
—— ∫ ——
…what can memory actually do, the poor thing? It is only capable of retaining a paltry little scrap and not some other one, since in each of us the choice occurs mysteriously, outside our will or our interests. We won’t understand a thing about human life if we persist in avoiding the most obvious fact: that a reality no longer is what it was when it was; it cannot be reconstructed.
(Ignorance - Milan Kundera)
—— ∫ ——
A culpa foi minha, chorava ela, e era verdade, não se podia negar, mas também é certo, se isso lhe serve the consolação, que se antes de cada acto nosso nos puséssemos a prever todas as consequências dele, a pensar nelas a sério, primeiro as imediatas, depois as possíveis, depois as imagináveis, não chegaríamos sequer a mover-nos de onde o primeiro pensamento nos tivesse feito parar. Os bons e os maus resultados dos nossos ditos e obras vão-se distribuindo, supõe-se que de uma forma bastante uniforme e equilibrada, por todos os dias do futuro, incluindo aqueles, infindáveis, em que já cá não estaremos para poder comprová-lo, para congratular-nos ou pedir perdão, aliás, há quem diga que isso é que é a imortalidade de que tanto se fala…
(Ensaio sobre a cegueira - José Saramago)
—— ∫ ——
… depois voltou à sala, onde a candeia estava, ia ser útil pela primeira vez desde que a fabricaram, ao princípio não parecia ir ser este o seu destino, mas nenhum de nós, candeias, cães ou humanos, sabe, ao princípio, tudo para que tinha vindo ao mundo.
(Ensaio sobre a cegueira - José Saramago)
—— ∫ ——
As palavras são assim, disfarçam muito, vão-se juntando umas com as outras, parece que não sabem aonde querem ir, e de repente saem, simples em si mesmas, um pronome pessoal, um advérbio, um verbo, um adjectivo, e aí temos a comoção a subir irresistível à superfície da pele e dos olhos, a estalar a compostura dos sentimentos, às vezes são os nervos que não podem aguentar mais, suportaram muito, suportaram tudo, era como se levassem uma armadura, diz-se A mulher do médico tem nervos de aço, e afinal a mulher do médico está desfeita em lágrimas por obra de um pronome pessoal, de um advérbio, de um verbo, de um adjectivo, meras categorias gramaticais, meros designativos, como o são igualmente as duas melhores mais, as outras, pronomes indefinidos, também eles chorosos, que se abraçam à da oração completa, três graças nuas sob a chuva que cai. São momentos que não podem durar eternamente.
(Ensaio sobre a cegueira - José Saramago)
—— ∫ ——
Click on these links for more of my favorite passages from The Invention of Solitude
Patchwork Writing on The Invention of Solitude and Patchwork Writing on the Labyrinthine Nature of Thoughts
Click here for my next list and the one that follows it.
Damien Rice - Elephant/9
This post is the creative work of Iris Watts Hirideyo and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Reading, resolutions, writing, discipline, ideas, books, romantic, movement, Me talk pretty one day, ensaio, cegueira, Prague, Valis, Ignorance, invention, solitude
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