Good Readings
10:38Pm, I watched Casablanca again today; fell asleep but it's still a good movie. Tomorrow will be a rather big day for me- so obviously I'm going to talk about the old books on my shelves instead of anything even remotely related to tomorrow.
Les Misérables - My favourite edition that I have is a two volume set of green hardcovers; the ribbon for page marking is coming loose and I've been meaning to replace it for months now, I doubt I'll ever get around to it despite having already bought new ribbon. The book itself is a rather long, old french novel with a dozen different sub-plots. I've read it through completely twice now and whenever I'm in a certain mood I'll read a different section of it just for fun. It's my favourite novel and I recommend it to anyone with some time to read.
Cyrano de Bergerac - Alright, so really this is a play but I'm not picky. It's in a hardcover collection of various plays which I picked up from a used book store for 8 bucks. It's another old french story; this time with just one plot. It's about a guy called Cyrano who is a master of words and poetry, but also a leader of men and a brave soldier. He has a grotesque nose which has left him completely without love his entire life (something had to balance him out). It's a comedy, with elements of romance and adventure, sort of an early french drama version of Princess Bride.
Alice in Wonderland - Still reading this very strange book - I advise against reading this shortly before bed unless you want very odd dreams. The inside cover is marked "To Anne, from your Aunt Cissy, 1907" so I suppose it's been kicking around my family for a while.
Paul's Case - The story of a guy who spends his youth pretending to be a 'somebody' when really his family is rather poor. The ending is a downer, which is alright because life tends to be that way. My copy is just a print-out from the internet, I haven't seen it around anywhere except for school but I don't mind my "looseleaf" edition.
Various books of poetry - Wow, there is a lot of really bad poetry out there. It's still worth reading though, usually from the agony of a bad book of poetry there is enough to scrap together a few decent lines of prose. I have a book of Shakespeare's sonnets that was given to me at Christmas which I keep in my jacket pocket; I flip through it whenever I have a few moments and I look for the good bits.
*warning, stream of conciousness writting to follow*
After reading and re-reading a book of love poetry I finally started to understand why it is that much of it is so terrible. Without context, without feeling, without love, the poems are meaningless rubbish; but when they were written and (hopefully) first given to those who the author cared about - they were an expression of the moment. Words as simple as "I love you" when read of an unknown author speaking to an unknown sweetheart mean nothing; those exact same words when spoken directly from one's heart to another's holds a completely different effect. While seeing a rose in a shop may be relatively nice; the same stem and petals could bring the same person tears when presented properly; this is the case with flowers just as this is the case with words.
Cheers,
Les Misérables - My favourite edition that I have is a two volume set of green hardcovers; the ribbon for page marking is coming loose and I've been meaning to replace it for months now, I doubt I'll ever get around to it despite having already bought new ribbon. The book itself is a rather long, old french novel with a dozen different sub-plots. I've read it through completely twice now and whenever I'm in a certain mood I'll read a different section of it just for fun. It's my favourite novel and I recommend it to anyone with some time to read.
Cyrano de Bergerac - Alright, so really this is a play but I'm not picky. It's in a hardcover collection of various plays which I picked up from a used book store for 8 bucks. It's another old french story; this time with just one plot. It's about a guy called Cyrano who is a master of words and poetry, but also a leader of men and a brave soldier. He has a grotesque nose which has left him completely without love his entire life (something had to balance him out). It's a comedy, with elements of romance and adventure, sort of an early french drama version of Princess Bride.
Alice in Wonderland - Still reading this very strange book - I advise against reading this shortly before bed unless you want very odd dreams. The inside cover is marked "To Anne, from your Aunt Cissy, 1907" so I suppose it's been kicking around my family for a while.
Paul's Case - The story of a guy who spends his youth pretending to be a 'somebody' when really his family is rather poor. The ending is a downer, which is alright because life tends to be that way. My copy is just a print-out from the internet, I haven't seen it around anywhere except for school but I don't mind my "looseleaf" edition.
Various books of poetry - Wow, there is a lot of really bad poetry out there. It's still worth reading though, usually from the agony of a bad book of poetry there is enough to scrap together a few decent lines of prose. I have a book of Shakespeare's sonnets that was given to me at Christmas which I keep in my jacket pocket; I flip through it whenever I have a few moments and I look for the good bits.
*warning, stream of conciousness writting to follow*
After reading and re-reading a book of love poetry I finally started to understand why it is that much of it is so terrible. Without context, without feeling, without love, the poems are meaningless rubbish; but when they were written and (hopefully) first given to those who the author cared about - they were an expression of the moment. Words as simple as "I love you" when read of an unknown author speaking to an unknown sweetheart mean nothing; those exact same words when spoken directly from one's heart to another's holds a completely different effect. While seeing a rose in a shop may be relatively nice; the same stem and petals could bring the same person tears when presented properly; this is the case with flowers just as this is the case with words.
Cheers,
posted by Owen Lewis | Monday, January 17, 2005
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