That’s a great take. The spiral. I have to find my copy and reread! Or maybe I need to listen. I was nearly half my age now when I first read it, and I love re-experiencing such books that 1) I loved at the time but 2) so many years have passed I forget exactly why. I am a different person today so 3) what will I see now?
Yes, I think I said that I’d tried to read it many years ago and couldn’t get past the first page. Just shows how we change. And thank goodness we do. I’ve stared at it slightly pissed-off for years having no idea what treasures lay between the covers. Will I one day find the same with Ulysses?
I binge-read Ulysses in a weekend for a seminar one Monday morning when I was doing my MA. On reflection maybe that was fitting as its action is confined to one day. Some of it made little sense but I just ploughed through. Much of it was sublime and I loved it, and tbh I prefer it to the other books of his that I read, though I have promised myself to go back to Dubliners and listen to it - I probably rushed that at the time too, and I think books of short stories need to be spaced out, over years even.
I felt the cadence and rhythm of The God of Small Things in this. Don’t you love how a book can take up residence and speak through you, even briefly? Your last insight is, as David says, profound.
I read a piece once in which the writer had calculated the number of books he would be able to read yearly at maximum reading time and, thus the number he would be able to read in a lifetime. The smallness of that number stunned me. I don’t mean to be hyperbolic, but I’d go so hard to say as it chilled me.
I must be small-minded, else why does it bother me that such a wise soul who writes so brilliantly misuses “I” and “me”? Or is it a stylistic technique that I am too much of an English major to appreciate? Fortunately, Eleanor’s grammatical peccadilloes don’t keep me from loving the work.
'Fire will return' this! I know... at 5:45am yesterday I woke to a plume of smoke on the horizon, distant enough to be of little concern to my own home, the smoke too black to be forest or field... later I read of 300 goats in a barn, a families entire life burned into the ground...
this evening another plume of smoke, closer to home, 10 hectares of woodland gone in less than two hours.
Fear sometimes outweighs love but like fire love returns also. I am becoming adept at juggling the two
Fear sometimes outweighs love but like fire love returns also. Thank you for this. And oh, those fires just now near you. So sorry. So sad. Stay safe xx
That’s a great take. The spiral. I have to find my copy and reread! Or maybe I need to listen. I was nearly half my age now when I first read it, and I love re-experiencing such books that 1) I loved at the time but 2) so many years have passed I forget exactly why. I am a different person today so 3) what will I see now?
Yes, I think I said that I’d tried to read it many years ago and couldn’t get past the first page. Just shows how we change. And thank goodness we do. I’ve stared at it slightly pissed-off for years having no idea what treasures lay between the covers. Will I one day find the same with Ulysses?
I binge-read Ulysses in a weekend for a seminar one Monday morning when I was doing my MA. On reflection maybe that was fitting as its action is confined to one day. Some of it made little sense but I just ploughed through. Much of it was sublime and I loved it, and tbh I prefer it to the other books of his that I read, though I have promised myself to go back to Dubliners and listen to it - I probably rushed that at the time too, and I think books of short stories need to be spaced out, over years even.
One weekend! Holy smoke. But maybe that is the way to do it.
the human species has evolved for almost our entire history in small groups. So, your last sentence is profound on an evolutionary basis as well!
I felt the cadence and rhythm of The God of Small Things in this. Don’t you love how a book can take up residence and speak through you, even briefly? Your last insight is, as David says, profound.
I read a piece once in which the writer had calculated the number of books he would be able to read yearly at maximum reading time and, thus the number he would be able to read in a lifetime. The smallness of that number stunned me. I don’t mean to be hyperbolic, but I’d go so hard to say as it chilled me.
Yup. The scale stops me in my tracks.
I must be small-minded, else why does it bother me that such a wise soul who writes so brilliantly misuses “I” and “me”? Or is it a stylistic technique that I am too much of an English major to appreciate? Fortunately, Eleanor’s grammatical peccadilloes don’t keep me from loving the work.
It was intentional, but I love that it bother you. (Also, sorry 😬)
Your work gives the impression that you enjoy winding people up. Good for you!
Beautiful as always, Eleanor. Thank you.
'Fire will return' this! I know... at 5:45am yesterday I woke to a plume of smoke on the horizon, distant enough to be of little concern to my own home, the smoke too black to be forest or field... later I read of 300 goats in a barn, a families entire life burned into the ground...
this evening another plume of smoke, closer to home, 10 hectares of woodland gone in less than two hours.
Fear sometimes outweighs love but like fire love returns also. I am becoming adept at juggling the two
Stay safe. X
Fear sometimes outweighs love but like fire love returns also. Thank you for this. And oh, those fires just now near you. So sorry. So sad. Stay safe xx
Quietly adds book to the constantly spiralling list that is my ‘to be sourced and read’ pile!
Ditto Barrie, I thought I had a copy but on searching find I am mistaken!
I’ll be rootling about on Awesome Books for a used copy!
I think I have a friend with a copy… 🤞🏽
Hoping so 🤞
those words vibrated a little differently