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August 16 AMIt's almost 4AM so less than an hour to go in my shift.
It's been pretty slow tonight so I actually finished off The Creators by Daniel J. Boorstin. I've been reading it on and off for a while - good thing it's a history book and I don't have to worry about plot lines. It's an interesting work - dealing with the major artists and seminole works.
The last part of the book dealt with the written word and self - "The Wilderness Within". I found it interesting what he had to write about literature turning inward and how female authors really drove that. Since in Victorian times proper young ladies were not supposed to write, think, have anything to do outside of needle point and tea they lacked the external experiences that men had. This led them to use an internal landscape when writing.
Boorstin also wrote a fair amount about Virginia Woolf, one of these days I jsut may have to pick up some of her books.
If you are interested in the arts I highly recommend this book on the history of creating. It begins the Hindus and Buddhism and ends with Picasso. In between you will find Bach and Mozart, Michaelangelo and Leonardo, Kafka and Joyce. Be prepared to read for a while though, it's 747 pages with the epilogue. August 07 Evening Snow Will Bring Such PeaceIt’s official. David Adams Richards is my favourite author.
No writer before has ever wrenched such emotion from me. And
wrenched is the correct term. Usually when reading I have a
voyeuristic interest in the characters, a curiosity about what is to
come next, but no real emotion. I usually look at literature from
an intellectual standpoint, but Richards speaks to my emotions. Never before have I encountered a literary character so despicable, I’ve never wanted to jump into a story and scoop up a character to spirit her away to a better place. The people of Richards’ books are all flawed, yet some are likeable while others are distasteful without any seemingly redeeming qualities. None are charicatures. Richards’s writings are dark, yet there is some hope woven through the story. There is often redemption, but at a high cost. Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace is the second of the Miramachi Trilogy after Nights Below Station Street, although it can stand alone. I’d like to write some more about it, but I don’t really want to give away too much of the story for anyone who wishes to read it. But please, someone pick up the Trilogy so that I can talk about it with someone, they are phenomenal works. July 17 Nights Below Station StreetI think David Adams Richards is about to become my favourite author. I have just finished Nights Below Station Street and was simply amazed. No wonder it won the Governor General's Award. The book is set in a small town in New Brunswick in the early 1970s and is the first of Richards' Miramachi trilogy. There is no obvious plot, you have to look a little deeper, it is about people. If it were a movie or TV show it would be called character driven. And what characters. It only took a few pages to know them and they draw you into the story. I am not sure if literary terms would suffice in describing this work. Terms like "gut wrenching" and "raw" come to mind. There were times that I laughed out loud (very rare for me when reading) and other times when I felt a wave of sympathy or my stomach tightening. I highly recommend this book; it may be a little hard to find but it is worth the effort. I had Greenley's order the second book for me and the third is being reprinted. Richards is another Canadian author and has won several awards including the Governor General's Literary Award for both fiction and non-fiction. Pilgrim"No wonder the gods are departing, he thought. We
have driven them away. Once, every tree out there was holy -
every tree and every strand of grass and clod of earth. The very
stones were holy and everything that lived, no matter how small or
large - every elephant and every ant - every man and every woman.
All were holy. Everything - the sea - the sky - the sun -
the moon - the wind - the rain - the fairest and the worst of
days...All of it gone and only one deaf God, who cannot see, remains -
claiming all of creation as His own. If people would invest one
hundredth of their devotion to this God in the living brothers and
sisters amongst who they stand, we might have a chance of surviving one
another. As it is..." That is a passage from Timothy Findley's Pilgrim which I finished a week ago. A pretty interesting read, I can see why it was shortlisted for the Giller Prize. It is about a man who apparently cannot die - he is sent to an asylum in Switzerland after failing again to commit suicide. His doctor there is Carl Gustav Jung and the book contains several references to Jung's theories and both fictional and fictionalized accounts of how Jung came to these theories. There are also some interesting stories of Da Vinci included. This book is certainly on my recommended reading list. Findley is a Canadian author (I posted a while ago about Canlit) and has won the Governor General's Award for fiction. May 14 BooklistJust a few of my favourite books, ones that have made an impact on my life, I'll update my list periodically: Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad. An amazing book about the human soul, it's also the basis of the movie Apocalyse Now. Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger. Not really much to say, just read it and you will understand. Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky. This is where my nick, MityaKar comes from. The middle brother Mitya. Dune - Frank Herbert. A desert, a resource the universe needs, the spice must flow. Ring any bells? My escape reading - Robert Jordan's Eye of the World series, Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series. George R.R. Martin has some pretty good stuff too. No messages, just plain old escapism. |
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