Grab the Nearest Book...

[trysail]

"I am not doing well by Ernestina, who was after all a victim of circumstances; of an illiberal environment. It is, of course, its essentially schizophrenic outlook on society that makes the middle class such a peculiar mixture of yeast and dough. We tend nowadays to forget that it has always been the great revolutionary class; we see much more the doughy aspect, the bourgeoisie as the heartland of reaction, the universal insult, forever selfish and conforming. Now this Janus-like quality derives from the class's one saving virtue, which is this: that alone of the three great castes of society it alone sincerely and habitually despises itself. Ernestina was certainly no exception here. It was not only Charles who heard an unwelcome acidity in her voice; she heard it herself. But her tragedy (and one that remains ubiquitous) was that she misapplied this precious gift of self-contempt and so made herself a victim of her class's perennial lack of faith in itself. Instead of seeing its failings as a reason to reject the entire class system, she saw them as a reason to seek a higher. She cannot be blamed, of course; she had been hopelessly well trained to view society as so many rungs on a ladder; thus reducing her own to a mere step to something supposedly better."

-John Fowles
The French Lieutenant's Woman
New York, 1969


How's that for an acidic comment?

 

[trysail]

Mencken- "The National Letters"


"In character creation its masterpiece is the advertising agent who, by devising some new and super-imbecilic boobtrap, puts his hook-and-eye factory 'on the map,' ruins all other factories, marries the daughter of his boss, and so ends as an eminent man...... It is the sort of thing that awakens a response only in men who are essentially unimaginative, timorous and degraded- in brief, in democrats, bagmen, yahoos. The man of reflective habit cannot conceivably take any passionate interest in the conflicts it deals with. He doesn't want to marry the daughter of the owner of the hook-and-eye factory; he would probably burn down the factory itself if it ever came into his hands. What interests this man is the far more poignant and significant conflict between a salient individual and the harsh and meaningless fiats of destiny, the unintelligible mandates and vagaries of god. His hero is not one who yields and wins, but one who resists and fails."

-H. L. Mencken
Prejudices, Second Series. "The National Letters"
New York, 1920


Ahhhh! Mencken!

 

[trysail]

The Diary of H.L. Mencken


"......Pearl argued that any man who entertained a lady for so little as two minutes was guilty of a gross offense, not only against her person but also against the peace and dignity of the human race..... [Brodel] had simply never heard that copulation could be prolonged at will- at all events, far beyond the limits he had set..... On the heels of this grotesque discussion Pearl announced the founding of an organization to be called the Society for More and Better Fucking in the Home."

-H. L. Mencken
The Diary of H.L. Mencken
New York, 1989


Membership applications are still accepted!

 

[chris2c4u]

The reason it hurts so much to separate is because our souls are connected. Maybe they always have been and will be. Maybe we've lived a thousand lives before ths one and in each of them we've found each other. and maybe each time, we've been forced apart for the same reasons. That means that this is both a good-bye for the past ten thousand years and a prelude to what will come.

N. Sparks, The Notebook.

 

[trysail]

Little Big Man


"I never did like dirty tales, true or false; if they're any good, they just make you wistful; if not there's nothing more boresome in the world, I reckon."

-Thomas Berger
Little Big Man
New York, 1964


There's some truth to Jack Crabb's observation.

 

[MaiusImperium]

"In Lorien are his gardens in the land of the Valar, and they are the fairest of all places in the world, filled with many spirits. " - The Valaquenta, taken from The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Not exactly part of the Silmarillion, Valaquenta is a shorter work that proceeds it in this particular edition. It's a lovely book with paintings by Ted Naismith, I got it for Christmas (for being such a good boy and all).

 

[chris2c4u]

So it was, I found myself in Montmartre, as the Belle Epoque dissolved into a still more wonderous time.

Unpublished papers of Thomas Bellion, Notebook C, in possession of his great great grandchildren.

 

[Maid of Marvels]

The bottle was dropped overboard on a warm summer evening, a few hours before the rain began to fall. Like all bottles, it was fragile and would break if dropped a few feet from the ground. But when sealed properly and sent to sea, as this one was, it became one of the most seaworthy objects known to man. It could float safely through hurricanes or tropical storms, it could bob atop the most dangerous of riptides. It was, in a way, the ideal home for the message it carried inside, a message that had been sent to fulfill a promise.

Message in a Bottle - Nicholas Sparks

 

[trysail]

Serenissima, A Novel of Venice


"For it is part of my craft to make every swain fall in love with me. I do it for sport, for craftsmanship, on a bet, on a dare. My heart fills, my thighs ache; my silk panties moisten; the sense memories of love make me feel that I feel love though I love not- or only love my art- ah, my first acting teacher, Arnold Feibleman, would be proud of me! As would my dear feisty Vivian Lovecraft, my mentor. To make someone believe you are in love when you are not- this is my craft, my witchery. For as I gaze into Wolfgang's eyes, I fall in love with the image of my beloved self that I see there. Oscar Wilde was right: an actress is a little more than a woman, an actor a little more than a man. I cannot help myself, I am in love with the Jessica that Wolfgang is in love with! I am besotted with my craft, like a witch who turns a mouse into a lizard only to prove she can. Poor mouse, poor lizard, what do they know? Acted on as they are by the powers that be, what do they feel when time stops and the fur turns to scale. Poor creatures. Poveretti. We witches, we actresses are as wanton boys to flies; we kill them for our sport."

-Erica Jong
Serenissima, A Novel of Venice
Boston, 1987


Terrifying words from the inventor of the "zipless fuck."

 

[chris2c4u]

Milking cows, churning butter, for sure you know milkmaids must give great hand jobs.

C. Palahniuk, Choke.

 

[trysail]

Of Human Bondage


"Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life; he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment."

- W. Somerset Maugham
Of Human Bondage
Modern Library Edition, New York, 1942


Escapism, too, has perils.

 

[trysail]

On The Road


"It was remarkable how Dean could go mad and then suddenly continue with his soul- which I think is wrapped up in a fast car, a coast to reach, and a woman at the end of the road- calmly and sanely as though nothing had happened.

As a seaman I used to think of the waves rushing beneath the shell of the ship and the bottomless deeps thereunder- now I could feel the road some twenty inches beneath me, unfurling and flying and hissing at incredible speeds across the groaning continent with that mad Ahab at the wheel."

- Jack Kerouac
On The Road
Viking Critical Edition, New York, 1979


Oh, my, what a lovely piece of writing!
Road trip, anyone?

 

[trysail]

In Search Of The Trojan War


"As often as we read of armies plundering, we find small bands of adventurers trying to carve out a new home somewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean and Aegean. The title they most coveted, if we can trust Homer, was 'sacker of cities.' In the Homeric epics, and still in Aeschylus, it was a leader's greatest claim to glory. Agamemnon, Achilles, Nestor ('in my youth I was one') and even Athena herself bear the title of 'sacker of cities' in Homer.

We should not overdo the search for 'modern' motives for this. In the Iliad the sacker of cities does not destroy to increase his political power, to combat inflation, to open up trade routes to the Black Sea or to the tin mines of Europe; he does not destroy to appropriate the mackerel and tunny harvests. He says he sacks cities to get booty, treasures, horses, cattle, gold, silver, fine armor and weapons- and women. We must not forget the women (after all, the legend insists that the seizure of a woman was the cause of the Trojan War). Time and again Homer tells of the fight for 'the city and its women.' When Achilles tells Odysseus of the twenty-three cities he has sacked he mentions only 'treasure and women' as his gain. This is what makes him proud, and gives him fame after his death. And the more beautiful the women, the better.

.... Such then were the goals of 'heroic' kingship. If economic necessity can partly explain such attacks- to replenish the slave labor in the 'state industries-' nevertheless it was doubtless still true that the greater the booty captured, the larger quantities of gold and silver, the finer the horses and the more beautiful the women, the greater the honour due to the conquerer."

- Michael Wood
In Search of The Trojan War
Oxford (U.K.), 1985


Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

 

[Longleg]

"So we end up with bug-men who know how to talk"



D & L Eddings ,Crystal Gorge

 

[trysail]

Herodotus' The Histories


"My Lord," he said, "without a debate in which both sides of a question are expressed, it is not possible to choose the better course. All one can do is accept whatever it is that has been proposed. But grant a debate, and there is a fair choice to be made. We cannot assess the purity of gold merely by looking at it; we test it by rubbing it on other gold- then we can tell which is the purer. I warned your father- Darius was my own brother- not to attack the Scythians, those wanderers who live in a cityless land. But he would not listen to me. Confident in his power to subdue them he invaded their country, and before he came home again many fine soldiers who marched with him were dead. But you, my lord, mean to attack a nation greatly superior to the Scythians; a nation with the highest reputation for valour on land and at sea. It is my duty to tell you what you have to fear from them; you have said you mean to bridge the Hellespont and march through Europe to Greece. Now suppose- and it is not impossible- that you were to suffer a great reverse by land or sea, or even both. Those Greeks are said to be great fighters- and indeed one might well guess as much from the fact that the Athenians alone destroyed the great army we sent to attack them under Datis and Artaphemes. Or if you will, suppose they were to succeed upon one element only- suppose they fell upon our fleet and defeated it, and then sailed to the Hellespont and destroyed the bridge: then, my lord, you would indeed be in peril. It is no special wisdom of my own that makes me argue as I do; but just such a disaster as I have suggested did, in fact, nearly overtake us when your father bridged the Thracian Bosporus and the Danube to take his army into Scythia...

Nothing is more valuable to a man than to lay his plans carefully and well; even if things go against him, and forces he cannot control bring his enterprise to nothing, he still has the satisfaction of knowing that it was not his fault- the plans were all laid; if, on the other hand, he leaps headlong into danger and succeeds by luck- well, that's a bit of luck indeed, but he still has the shame of knowing that he was ill prepared.

You know, my lord, that amongst living creatures it is the great ones that God smites with his thunder, out of envy of their pride. The little ones do not vex him. It is always the great buildings and the tall trees which are struck by lightning. It is God's way to bring the lofty low. Often a great army is destroyed by a little one, when God in his envy puts fear into the men's hearts, or sends a thunderstorm, and they are cut to pieces in a way they do not deserve. For God tolerates pride in none but himself. Haste is the mother of failure- and for failure we always pay a heavy price; it is in delay our profit lies- perhaps it may not be immediately apparent, but we shall find it, sure enough, as time goes on.

This, my lord, is the advice I offer you. And as for you, Mardonius, I warn you that the Greeks in no way deserve disparagement; so say no more silly things about them. By slandering the Greeks you increase the king's eagerness to make war on them, and, as far as I can see, this is the very thing you yourself most passionately desire. Heaven forbid it should happen! Slander is a wicked thing; in a case of slander two parties do wrong and one suffers by it. The slanderer is guilty in that he speaks ill of a man behind his back; and the man who listens to him is guilty in that he takes his word without troubling to find out the truth. The slandered person suffers doubly- from the disparaging words of the one and from the belief of the other that he deserves the disparagement."

- Herodotus. Translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt, revised by A.R. Burn.
The Histories- Book VII, Artabanus' Warning
London, 1988


I believe it was Henry Ford who once said, "History is bunk."

 

[Maid of Marvels]

Apologies for not expressing my appreciation of the quotes given here. I have read some and added others to my "list". Post-it-Notes R my friend.

Currently, I am plodding through a book that I was curious about after reading an excerpt at "Literary Review". The book was one of the contenders for their "Bad Sex" award. I'd appreciate other comments on this book by anyone else has read it. (The only other I've read by this author was "Gravity's Rainbow" back when books were still written on clay tablets.

If anyone is game, I'll post the bit I read that led me to this book. I can't help thinking this author is putting us all on.

Pedestrians below were moving at their accustomed gaits, sitting at the tables in front of Florian and Quadri, if Francophile raising toasts to Bastille Day, feeding, photographing, or cursing the pigeons, who, aware of some baleful anomaly in their sky, stuttered wildly into the air, then, reconsidering, settled, only to sweep a moment later heavenward again, as if on the strength of a rumor.

Thomas Pynchon - Against the Day

 

[gagonthis]

Page 28 has no tenth sentence. So I shall substitute: "As I got into bed, I heard the grinding sound of the huge anchor chain slowly ascending."

Ron Lovell's Murder Below Zero


I do volunteer work at a museum book store on weekend and I saw this book and just had to pick it up after reading the description on the back...

"In his latest adventure, professor and sometime amateur sleuth Thomas Martindale leaves campus to sign on as a science writer for a research expedition to the Arctic for a chance of pace from the often mundane world of the university. The work is unique: an attempt to study ice a tool for nation security [WTF?]. Soon after the members of the team board a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker for the journey to their base - a remote island in the Beaufort Sea- Russian scientists join the group with unpleasant consequences.
The rivalry turns deadly after the icebreaker leaves and people start dying under mysterious circumstances. The arrival of an Arab terrorist and a marauding polar bear [Yes that's right, they used ARAB TERRORIST and MARAUDING POLAR BEAR in the same sentence...] complicate life on the small island. Any early freeze traps the men and women of the expedition as a massive ice shield closes in. The events oddly parallel a similar (and real) disaster Martindale is writing about, which took place in 1897"

Wow, just wow. I've only gotten like ten pages into the book, but it's already the most ridiculous thing I have ever had the joy to read.

 

[chris2c4u]

Next...the exploding suicide polar bear...

(Pssst Maid only pretends she can read you know) Nods sagely.

 

[Maid of Marvels]

*grumbles at Chris*
That's also why I enjoy listening to programs on the BBC radio.​

That's precious, gag. I've jotted down the title and look forward to perusing it - especially if there are pictures. That way I can pretend to have read it.

In the meantime, take a look at this: The Iceboat Cometh

 

[MaiusImperium]

I'LL GIVE YOU A LIFT BACK, said death, after a while.

"Thank you. Now...tell me..."

WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU HADN'T SAVED HIM?

"Yes! The sun would have risen just the same, yes?"

NO.

"Oh, come on. You can't expectme to believe that. It's an astronomical fact."

THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN.

She turned on him. "It's been a long night, Grandfather! I'm tired and I need a bath! I don't need silliness!"

THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN.

"Really? What would have happened, pray?"

A MERE FLAMING BALL OF GAS WOULD HAVE ILLUMINATED THE WORLD. They walked in silence for a moment.

"Ah," said Susan dully. "Trickery with words. I would have thought you'd have been more liberal-minded than that."

I AM NOTHING IF NOT LIBERAL-MINDED. TRICKERY WITH WORDS IS WHERE HUMANS LIVE.

"All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need...fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth faeries? Hogfathers? Little--"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET- Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME . . . SOME RIGHTNESS BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point--"

MY POINT EXACTLY.

---

The Hogfather, Terry Pratchett.

 

[VickyCummings]

"Her perfume was getting to him, a fragance that somehow seemed familar."

 

[OnHarry]

"Professor Robert Langdon had seen some strange things in his life, but this was the strangest."

Dan Brown; Angels And Demons page 28, tenth sentence.

I once had a Sociology Text that had on the first page of the introduction three sentences, they were run on sentences run amok, and dreadfully boring and poorly edited.

 

[impish_pixie]

"I watched bits of organ and bone blown out their backs."

The Zombie Survival Guide
-Complete Protection From The Living Dead

Max Brooks

 

[impish_pixie]

"When coupled with banks of PEM, or proton exchange membrain, fuel cells, a technology that converts seawater to electricity, it is easy to see why the prefix 'IS' stands for 'Infinity Ship'.

World War Z
-An Oral History of the Zombie War

Max Brooks

 

[gagonthis]

I want to read that book so badly. I just reread the Zombie Survival Guide for about the 90th time. I'm waiting with bated breath for that one to come out in paperback.