Tag: classics

Friday Fifteen

Leave a comment

Happy Friday, everyone! What better way to end the week than with some fifteen-word book reviews:

1. Friends by Helme Heine
I used to love this book, especially the rooster’s rainbow tail.

2. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
Just as cute and fun as everyone said. Can I study abroad in Paris?

3. Barefoot Contessa, How Easy Is That? by Ina Garten
The ones I’ve tried turned out well. Apparently Ina likes her Bolognese spicy—woohoo!

4. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The most depressing Steinbeck book. And he wrote about dead puppies.

5. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Not my favorite, but I like how Fanny holds it together amidst so much crazy.

Endure and Prevail

2 Comments

Last week my dad mentioned William Faulkner’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech. I’d read it before, but it feels particularly meaningful now. My favorite part:

“I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking.

I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.”

Bold/italics are mine. Writers, we’ve got a job to do. Let’s help humanity prevail.

Make sure to click through to see the whole speech; you can even listen to Faulkner read it!

(image: Wikipedia)

Friday Fifteen

6 Comments

So. It’s been the Week of Suck to end all Weeks of Suck. And here in Boston we’re currently still waiting for an end to an intense manhunt that’s been going on nearly 24 hours. But the Boston community is holding strong, so this week’s Friday Fifteen is dedicated to Boston-area writers.

1. Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Great writing, but I’m more of an indoor girl.

2. Choosing a Jewish Life: A Handbook for People Converting to Judaism and for Their Family and Friends by Anita Diamant
Warm and inclusive look at conversion. Read for novel research; very interesting on its own.

3. The Ugly Vegetables by Grace Lin
How to win friends and influence people with tasty veg.

4. The Devils Arithmatic by Jane Yolen
Pretty sure I read this, but totally forgot the “time travel” and am questioning myself.

5. Drown by Junot Diaz
Read in a contemporary novel class; one of the few I really remember.

Thanks to everyone for the support and love this week! Bostonians and non-Bostonians alike, we are going to get through this.

All Distances of Place, All Distances of Time

2 Comments

It’s the kind of morning when I need to be reminded of the interconnectedness of the universe. What better way to do that than with a little Whitman? From Leaves of Grass, On the Beach at Night, Alone:

ON the beach at night alone,
As the old mother sways her to and fro, singing her husky song,
As I watch the bright stars shining—I think a thought of the clef of the universes, and of the future.

A VAST SIMILITUDE interlocks all,
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets, comets, asteroids,
All the substances of the same, and all that is spiritual upon the same,
All distances of place, however wide,
All distances of time—all inanimate forms,
All Souls—all living bodies, though they be ever so different, or in different worlds,
All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes—the fishes, the brutes,
All men and women—me also;
All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages;
All identities that have existed, or may exist, on this globe, or any globe;
All lives and deaths—all of the past, present, future;
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann’d, and shall forever span them, and compactly hold them, and enclose them.

Click through to check out the rest of Leaves of Grass. Any poems you’re inspired by today?

(image: Thayer and Eldridge, via Wiki Commons)

An Excuse to Post About To Kill a Mockingbird and Gregory Peck

1 Comment

Happy birthday to Gregory Peck, all-around cool guy and the man who brought Atticus Finch to the screen with so much sensitivity and thoughtfulness.

To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my favorite books and movies. (Just hearing the score to the film gets me teary.) It’s a beautiful example of how an amazing text can be brought to life on the screen. So often we argue about whether a book is better than a movie. Why can’t we love both for different reasons?

Oddly enough, I was thinking about Gregory Peck last night and came across this video, in which Peck talks briefly about filming To Kill a Mockingbird with Harper Lee on set:

http://youtu.be/NEotCS6PNvI?t=8m10s

So cute! I would have freaking loved to be on that set. And while we’re at it, here are Atticus Finch’s closing arguments:

And after the trial:

Now I’m going to be all emotional thinking about To Kill a Mockingbird. May we all endeavor to be like Atticus Finch.

Aprill Shoures Brung May Flours: April Is for Poetry

3 Comments

April is National Poetry Month, so it makes sense that one of English literature’s oldest poems opens with a reference to this very month. Check out this opening to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales:

Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(so priketh hem nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;

Um…what does that mean? Don’t worry, I’m not exactly fluent in Middle English myself. Fortunately there’s a translation:

When April with his showers sweet with fruit
The drought of March has pierced unto the root
And bathed each vein with liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;
When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath,
Quickened again, in every holt and heath,
The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun
Into the Ram one half his course has run,
And many little birds make melody
That sleep through all the night with open eye
(So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)-
Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage,
And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,
To distant shrines well known in sundry lands.

Whether April’s inspired you to make a pilgrimage to Canterbury or not, you can check out the rest of The Canterbury Tales here. I didn’t have the best experience with Chaucer in college, which of course makes me think I should go back and investigate this Chaucer guy. I mean, dude did popularize the English language. We need to give him props for that.

May your April showers be sweet with fruit!

The Wise Man Knows Himself to Be a Fool

Leave a comment

Happy April Fool’s Day! I don’t like pranks so much, but I love Shakespeare’s fools. More than just a jester, these fools are witty and see beyond the status quo of the play’s world. For example, in this scene from Twelfth Night, Feste (my favorite fool!) asks Olivia why she mourns for her brother:

I love how Feste can address Olivia’s feelings of grief here while reminding her that it’s unhealthy to wallow in mourning.

Another cool part about the fool? They provide musical entertainment! This song is from the end of Twelfth Night. Spoiler alert, guys–happy endings (almost) all around:

So if you’re feeling especially foolish, check out Twelfth Night or another of Shakespeare’s plays featuring a fool.

And if pranks are your thing, there’s a great list of YA prankster books over at the Hub.

Get as Excited as Joseph Gordon Levitt About Your Favorite Book

2 Comments

You know how you know reading is cool? When celebrities get super excited about their favorite books, like a young Joseph Gordon Levitt did in this episode of (Teen Celebrity?) Jeopardy back in 1997:

http://youtu.be/a-EgebDY2iQ

Although I prefer Franny and Zooey, I dig Levitt’s style.

Confession: since I watched 3rd Rock from the Sun back in the day, a little part of me feels like I grew up with Joseph Gordon Levitt and am unreasonably proud of his current success as an actor. Like I expect to see him at the family reunion or something.

The Story Beyond Attainment, Beyond Help

1 Comment

I’ve confessed before that I’m not a Hemingway fan. But I was intrigued by his Nobel Prize speech and the circumstances surrounding it. He talks a little about the loneliness of writing, which I don’t tend to agree with, but I liked this part quite a bit:

“For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment…It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him.”

I like this idea of being driven out beyond help, beyond what you can conceive of for yourself. Because if you’re writing, it should be because this is a story that needs to be told and hasn’t been told before. This is your challenge and we’re always pushed further than before.

Make sure to check out the whole speech.

Pens and Paws

1 Comment

Happy belated St. Patrick’s day, everyone! Last night we watched The Secret of Kells, which is such a gorgeous movie, and reminded me of this lovely poem about a writer and his cat. Here’s one famous translation by Robin Flower:

The scholar and his cat, Pangur Bán
(from the Irish by Robin Flower)

I and Pangur Ban my cat,
‘Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
‘Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill-will,
He too plies his simple skill.

‘Tis a merry task to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur’s way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

‘Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
‘Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den,
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!

So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Ban, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.

I love this comparison between a cat at hunt and a writer at work, especially that last stanza. Check out a few other translations as well.

(poem via Beatrice Santorini)(image by Robert Crum)