tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78023050310682052312024-03-29T14:29:35.679+11:00The kindled and the unkindledAnuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comBlogger120125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-71463764290298618962024-03-22T18:58:00.006+11:002024-03-24T17:03:16.185+11:00Augustus and educationOne of my current reads is Augustus, by John Williams. This is my second Williams novel (after Stoner). Augustus is organised like a documentary: different angles and point-of-views through different documents. Most of these are letters and journals of different parties, some reports and notes that slowly unfold history. I like both: the way it is written and the subject matter. It has Anuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-14102342187784712912024-03-22T08:43:00.002+11:002024-03-22T08:43:15.483+11:00Blank page"as if the grainRemembered what the mallet tapped to know." (Seamus Henaey)Sometimes I feel like this with blank paper. It feels as if it knows what it holds, and like a chisel, fingers work to unfold it, or to gently lay out what it has been holding in its fists for eternity thus far. Gently, unfolding, it remembers word by word, phrase by phrase, what it eventually holds and what it has been Anuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-40221224100547555432024-03-20T20:50:00.031+11:002024-03-22T08:50:55.099+11:00Alberto ManguelRecently, I came across Alberto Manguel in a second-hand book sale (A Reading Diary). Reading the first chapter sent me looking for more books by him in the libraries around me. I then found one of his more recent books, Packing My Library (An Elegy and Ten Digressions).'A Reading Diary' has a chapter devoted to a month, where he revisits an old favorite. It begins in June. The first Anuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-10276441614827587932024-03-04T11:34:00.002+11:002024-03-04T11:34:09.478+11:00A poemI recently discovered Louis Macneice in a poetry anthology. This poem, 'Snow' by MacneiceThe room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window wasSpawning snow and pink roses against itSoundlessly collateral and incompatible:World is suddener than we fancy it.World is crazier and more of it than we think,Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portionA tangerine and spit the pips and feelThe Anuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-15928739473870359562023-11-24T14:24:00.001+11:002023-11-24T14:25:28.176+11:00Their Eyes Were Watching GodA very short note to say that this was a delightful reading experience. The speed itself renewed faith in reading fiction, and the magic of fiction. Loved that the book stands for itself, like its characters. Strong, vibrant, life lived well, as in lived fully, by giving one's all. Little else I can do at the moment except look more from her or more thoughts about the book. Joy and delight. Anuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-48588774704697429102023-09-21T11:26:00.002+10:002023-09-21T11:26:56.554+10:00KnausgaardReading Knausgaard. His essays, 'In The Land of the Cyclops'. Again and again when I read him, this about him: the meditative prose. Drawing in, and then plenty of departure points for thoughts to take off. A sort of soothing rhythm of the writing. The sentences keep flowing one after the another, not in a rush, but slowly, quietly. Like his collection, Winter and Autumn. I am yet to read the Anuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-84717178379110715762023-09-21T11:05:00.001+10:002023-09-21T11:30:39.829+10:00Slow readerThis strife with oneself. There seems to be an ocean to be read, and then one's span, or scoop size, a page at a time. When one reads slowly, wanderingly, digressingly, taking off at every suitable departure point for a tangent, one often lands in these conversations with self. About how and what to read. The aspirations are very high, but at the same time, one reads slowly, perhaps a few pages aAnuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-81746403033172765152023-08-29T17:48:00.000+10:002023-08-29T17:48:23.715+10:00Love the wild swanOne of the other books I'm reading these days is Czeslaw Milosz's A Year of the Hunter. This book is a diary of a year, 1987 Aug - 1988 July. I am still on early pages, now beginning September. I just perhaps need to reiterate this thing about a poet's prose. Somehow a poet's sensibility and the relationship with words, metaphors, phrases, sentences is quite something. The economy of the Anuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-5259606003791089892023-08-27T18:28:00.001+10:002023-08-27T18:28:22.132+10:00A General Theory of OblivionRead this book at my pen friend’s recommendation. Novel by Jose Eduardo Agualusa. Translated from Portugese. It is about a woman, in Angola, living in an apartment locked out from the world for over thirty years, surviving. But perhaps it is also a quiet thank-you note to the simple joys of reading. A reader cannot help but note the sentences of reading-love spread throughout the book. I Anuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-44394722903308196282023-07-11T14:04:00.003+10:002023-07-11T14:04:22.401+10:00A sonnet by KeatsYesterday I came across this sonnet by Keats:Sonnet VII - O Solitude! if I must with thee dwellO Solitude! if I must with thee dwell,Let it not be among the jumbled heaoOf murky buildings; climb with me the steep,—Nature's observatory—whencethe dell,Its flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell,May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep'Mongst boughs pavillion'd, where the deer's swift Anuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-34559004848325357832023-07-11T13:21:00.003+10:002023-07-11T13:22:03.409+10:00Les MiserablesLes Miserables has many detours of sorts, or rather pools of reflection at something or the other. Some sort of essays, thought-chains which explore some aspect of Paris, France, the world then. Sometimes, it is about revolutions, at other times, other ideas. I am in the last quarter of the book. When there is so much depth and thinking going on, it is difficult to keep reading quickly. One can Anuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-85710244076613183472023-06-30T18:00:00.002+10:002023-06-30T18:00:34.097+10:00A poemToday brought this poem by Czeslaw Milosz. SecretariesI am no more than a secretary of the invisible thingThat is dictated to me and a few others.Secretaries, mutually unknown, we walk the earthWithout much comprehension. Beginning a phrase in the middleOr ending it with a comma. And how it all looks when completedIs not up to us to inquire, we won't read it anyway.Another of his poem has Anuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-88987031126912681122023-06-30T14:30:00.005+10:002023-07-01T08:44:16.397+10:00My current readSince I take weeks/months sometimes to read some books, and since I also wish to keep adding to this page here, I've thought I'll perhaps share a little bit more about what goes on in my reading space. I am currently reading Les Miserables. I began sometime in June after finishing Moby Dick, which still sits close, opened sometimes to just get back the flavor of that language and poetry. LesAnuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-60879666970314060192023-06-26T11:50:00.003+10:002023-06-27T14:41:46.930+10:00'Intrepid effort of the soul' Over the last couple of years I have read a handful of books perhaps. Some of them were long books and took me long weeks, if not months. Most recent was Moby Dick. Moby Dick was a surprisingly rewarding reading experience. Surprising, because it is one of those books one has often heard about, but the reading of it was completely different from any of the heard instances. It was a Anuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-59633286498509212262023-06-13T15:19:00.039+10:002023-06-27T09:37:36.739+10:00Tradition and the individual talentSeamus Heaney in his 'Finders Keepers' talks lovingly and reverentially of T S Eliot. Reminded and inspired, I too spend my hours with Eliot's Collected Poems. And the desire and need to read more from and about Eliot. Looking up 'Joy of Reading', Charles Von Doren suggests reading certain poems and prose by Eliot, esp "Tradition and the Individual Talent". This can be found in 'The Sacred Wood'.Anuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-85499854497480717912023-06-12T18:23:00.001+10:002023-06-27T09:38:04.346+10:00Adam and EveI recently read Mark Twain's Extracts from Diaries of Adam and Eve, and it is a delightful and fun short read. I got nudged to the book from Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Wave in the mind" - her book about herself, reading and writing. There is a foreword of sorts to these diaries and so glad that I found them online and read them through. Available here: Eve's Diary, extracts from&Anuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-10401147526500314432023-06-11T16:43:00.004+10:002023-06-11T16:45:04.963+10:00A wholly new startSo here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerresTrying to use words, and every attemptIs a wholly new start, and a different kind of failureBecause one has only learnt to get the better of wordsFor the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in whichOne is no longer disposed to say it. And so each ventureIs a new beginning,Anuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-48305125481468427172022-01-10T16:10:00.001+11:002022-01-10T16:13:05.364+11:00KeatsI recently read a lecture on Mathematics (introductory part of the lecture), delivered by David Hilbert at the turn of last century, a sort of looking back at and looking forward to and gathering some of the biggest unsolved questions or wonders then in Maths. But as did so, he did one of those old-fashioned things, which perhaps finds itself a place in many rituals, and perhaps is a really nice Anuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-10644141443725913822022-01-10T08:07:00.003+11:002022-01-10T08:19:31.162+11:00New year postI like reading book blogs. And posts by different people on books, poems, essays, things they have liked and shared, added with their personal notes on the things. There is the joy of discovery, of reading, of sharing.So in that spirit, hoping to add a few posts this year. I like reading my own old posts too. Little to report on the yearly reading. Haven't been tracking it that well. Little Anuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-12665680243854310362020-04-30T21:35:00.000+10:002020-05-01T14:22:54.524+10:00April and Poems
April being the ‘cruellest month’, I tried to launch the month with ‘The Wasteland’. I read a few lines, soon something came up, and since then, I’ve been in and out of the poem. As always. Now that I think about it, very few moments have seen me read one of Eliot’s poems in a straight-line fashion. Always from here and there, wherever the eye lands. Always fragments. Fragments at times stuck inAnuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-955695365564922282020-04-27T06:41:00.000+10:002020-04-27T06:41:46.022+10:00The Divine InvasionThe Divine Invasion by Philip K. Dick is the second in series in the VALIS trilogy.
Not really as much a sci-fi but an alternate theological outcome imagined in an alternate reality. Quick read. Like Valis, this one too refers back to those two months in PKD’s life forever seeking explanation. One reads less for the book itself (which is alright as a standalone read, not really worth Anuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-37077948280412030882020-04-26T16:59:00.000+10:002020-04-30T09:09:43.510+10:00Paradise LostThe current lock-down and the general slowing of life gave me the opportunity to attempt to read Milton’s Paradise Lost. (In January, I wouldn’t have thought I’ll be devoting hours reading this classic, but then, if not now, when?).
I haven’t read much of classics, almost nothing of drama and historical, epical poems like these, and I have no reference point to look at these except that of an Anuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-39287928510592502392020-04-12T18:23:00.000+10:002020-04-17T13:54:17.604+10:00Rosshalde I picked this book by Herman Hesse at a second-hand book sale. Small, novella length book. Often attracted by its length, but as often detracted by the blurb which alludes to a tragedy, it took me a while to finally get around to reading it. And quite glad that I read it finally.
Long time ago I read his Siddhartha, which houses one of K’s favourite quotes, “I can think. I can wait. I can Anuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-12437079123597827302020-03-29T18:03:00.000+11:002020-03-29T18:03:20.718+11:00A Doll's HouseWritten in 1879, this is one of Henrik Ibsen’s social dramas around women’s place in home or society. The play opens with Nora, a wife and a mother (as she’s described through the play) coming home after shopping on Christmas eve, and takes place over three days and three Acts. Beginning with the warm, family evening of Christmas prep which left me feeling the couple talking as if kids playing Anuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7802305031068205231.post-58002008095515080292020-03-20T22:45:00.000+11:002020-03-21T18:36:05.168+11:00The Obverse of the SublimeI read a beautiful essay by Italo Calvino yesterday, called the 'Obverse of the sublime'. The essay is about him visiting the Imperial Palace in Japan in a guided tour group. It begins by describing an autumn tree in Japan.
“But it is not with an act of outrageous chromatic arrogance that the maples impose themselves on one’s view: if the eye is drawn towards them as though lured by a musical Anuradhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852287760524924904noreply@blogger.com