Wow, instant favorite; well, steak just about covers the whole book, just steak, steak, steak; all the variations, all the nitty-gritty details, all yWow, instant favorite; well, steak just about covers the whole book, just steak, steak, steak; all the variations, all the nitty-gritty details, all you ever wanted to know about the meat, the best ways to prepare and cook, some finger lickingly good recipes; enjoy, indulge, savor....more
Wow, Robert Macfarlane keeps surprising me; after his magisterial Underland: A Deep Time Journey and The Gifts of Reading this one is right up there wWow, Robert Macfarlane keeps surprising me; after his magisterial Underland: A Deep Time Journey and The Gifts of Reading this one is right up there with the best; in addition to compiling a lexicon of long lost words and expressions pertaining to landscapes and natural phenomena, Macfarlane treats you to an extended contemplation of what it means to name things, and really inhabit the world instead of just cruising along unaware of the magic of the seemingly mundane....more
Excellent primer, almost a guide to the world of Zen, a book I was hoping and looking for for a long time, but as it seems it hasn't had that much attExcellent primer, almost a guide to the world of Zen, a book I was hoping and looking for for a long time, but as it seems it hasn't had that much attention given the number of Goodreads ratings; the author helpfully guides you through the myriad concepts, words, meanings of the Chan/Zen philosophy and way of life, in the process getting to the heart of the matter, a feature mostly absent in available popular writings on the subject; highly recommended; some excerpts;
"Ch’an is not simply about establishing a mind of tranquility: that happens, but in unexpected ways. Instead, by emptying consciousness of the isolated identity-center we take for granted in our daily lives, Ch’an intends to liberate us into a larger identity that is woven integrally into landscape, earth, and Cosmos. This is Ch’an awakening: a radical kind of liberation, a freedom that transforms everything from identity and immediate everyday experience to death itself. And it demands a wild and fearless mind."
"Presence is simply the empirical universe, which the ancients described as the ten thousand things in constant transformation; and Absence is the generative void from which this ever-changing realm of Presence perpetually emerges. Lao Tzu describes it succinctly like this: All beneath heaven, the ten thousand things: it’s all born of Presence, and Presence is born of Absence."
"There is no distinction between noun and verb in classical Chinese. Virtually all words can function as either. Hence, the sense of reality as verbal: a tissue alive and in process. This includes all individual elements of reality, such as mountains or people, and contrasts with our language’s sense that reality is nominal, an assemblage of static things. A noun in fact only refers to a temporal slice through the ongoing verbal process that any thing actually is."...more
Outstanding introduction to 'the last Gothic cathedral'; in a way the author positions himself as a kind of meta-guide, as he guides you, the reader, Outstanding introduction to 'the last Gothic cathedral'; in a way the author positions himself as a kind of meta-guide, as he guides you, the reader, via the guides of the Dante figure in the narrative, through this magisterial work; enough in depth discussion to entertain and inform both the lay and academic reader.
" contrapasso (a kind of “counterbalance”). To state it simply, the punishment balances the crime; or, perhaps more accurately, the contrapasso turns the sin inside out to make the full horror of the sin evident for the first time."
"Then the poet says something amazing: Their eye sockets looked like rings with gems; and he who sees “omo” written into the visage of men would have recognized the “m.” (Purg. 23.31–33) In other words, their faces have become so thin, their eyes so sunken, that the nose and cheek bones form the letter m, with the eyes forming two o’s in the middle—that is, spelling out the word omo, Latin and Italian for “man.” This is an extraordinary moment. We know that Forese, like the others, is reading in a meditative way, contemplating the examples of temperance, while performing these exercises of fasting. And thus, while he is reading, his very face, his very visage, is being rewritten, so that his humanity is now becoming apparent once again. Forese, then, was like a text poorly written, but now it is being scratched out, and through his cooperation with God he is being rewritten to become the text he was meant to be. His humanity, as represented by the word omo, is being restored. His deep reading is the vehicle by which he is being rewritten in prayer."
"Poetry is not an escape from reality; it is its intensification. It is the attempt to recollect humanity’s origin. As J. R. R. Tolkien put it, good poetry brings with it a “curious thrill,” as if something stirs in you, half wakened from sleep. “There is something remote and strange and beautiful behind the words . . . something which derives its curiously moving quality from some older world.”"
"according to medieval theory, Eden was the place wherein language was born and fitted perfectly to the reality it was meant to signify, before the rift emerged between words and things."
"Consumerism feeds you, anticipating any craving long before it arises, keeping you from ever experiencing any meaningful hunger. What a contrast to the slow, patient reading and rereading that leads to greater hunger, to an intellectual leanness, to an alert mind—to that kind of reading needed to absorb and slowly chew on a book like Dante’s!"
Merged review:
Outstanding introduction to 'the last Gothic cathedral'; in a way the author positions himself as a kind of meta-guide, as he guides you, the reader, via the guides of the Dante figure in the narrative, through this magisterial work; enough in depth discussion to entertain and inform both the lay and academic reader.
" contrapasso (a kind of “counterbalance”). To state it simply, the punishment balances the crime; or, perhaps more accurately, the contrapasso turns the sin inside out to make the full horror of the sin evident for the first time."
"Then the poet says something amazing: Their eye sockets looked like rings with gems; and he who sees “omo” written into the visage of men would have recognized the “m.” (Purg. 23.31–33) In other words, their faces have become so thin, their eyes so sunken, that the nose and cheek bones form the letter m, with the eyes forming two o’s in the middle—that is, spelling out the word omo, Latin and Italian for “man.” This is an extraordinary moment. We know that Forese, like the others, is reading in a meditative way, contemplating the examples of temperance, while performing these exercises of fasting. And thus, while he is reading, his very face, his very visage, is being rewritten, so that his humanity is now becoming apparent once again. Forese, then, was like a text poorly written, but now it is being scratched out, and through his cooperation with God he is being rewritten to become the text he was meant to be. His humanity, as represented by the word omo, is being restored. His deep reading is the vehicle by which he is being rewritten in prayer."
"Poetry is not an escape from reality; it is its intensification. It is the attempt to recollect humanity’s origin. As J. R. R. Tolkien put it, good poetry brings with it a “curious thrill,” as if something stirs in you, half wakened from sleep. “There is something remote and strange and beautiful behind the words . . . something which derives its curiously moving quality from some older world.”"
"according to medieval theory, Eden was the place wherein language was born and fitted perfectly to the reality it was meant to signify, before the rift emerged between words and things."
"Consumerism feeds you, anticipating any craving long before it arises, keeping you from ever experiencing any meaningful hunger. What a contrast to the slow, patient reading and rereading that leads to greater hunger, to an intellectual leanness, to an alert mind—to that kind of reading needed to absorb and slowly chew on a book like Dante’s!"...more
Well considered contemplation on the commodification of storytelling; in places the style is somewhat lofty, flowery, obscure even (he, what'd you expWell considered contemplation on the commodification of storytelling; in places the style is somewhat lofty, flowery, obscure even (he, what'd you expect from a philosopher writing in French, Foucault adept and all), but that does not take away from the core message; storytelling has become disconnected from the world and the people it's supposed to represent; the means by which we communicate and forge meaning and purpose in life has to a great extent been corporatized, analysed, broken down and sold for parts, used/consumed in stead of employed; a kind of narrative pornography. Since then read his Vita contemplativa: oder von der Untätigkeit Eine Kritik an unserer Leistungsgesellschaft and liked it a lot less, less original; but the author seems to rail against commodification of life per se, whether it be time, narration, information, pain/sensation, love. He argues for actual presence in life, instead of whithering away in surrogate representations of life (which ties in neatly with his Zen buddhism background) and that's a message worth sharing.
"Rituals are also narrative practices: they are always embedded in a narrative context. As symbolic techniques for creating enclosure, they transform being-in-the-world into a being-at-home."
"Adrift in the sea of information and data, we seek a narrative anchor."
"Reality itself takes on the form of information and data. For the most part, we perceive reality in terms of information or through the lens of information. Information is an idea – that is, a re-presentation. When reality takes the form of information, the immediate experience of presence withers. When digitalization gives everything the form of information, reality is flattened."
"With digital platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat, we approach the degree zero of narration. They are media of information, not narration. They work in an additive rather than narrative fashion. The strings of information do not condense into a narrative. To the question ‘How do I add or edit a life event on my Facebook profile?’ the answer is: ‘Scroll down to posts and tap life event.’ Life events are mere bits of information. They are not woven into an extended narrative but simply added up into a syndetic arrangement. There is no narrative synthesis of events. On digital platforms, lived moments cannot be digested and condensed in a reflexive and narrative manner – and in fact this is intentional. Digital platforms’ technical dispositif rules out time-intensive narrative practices."
"In the information and transparency society, nakedness intensifies and becomes obscenity. However, this is not the charged obscenity of the repressed, prohibited or secret, but the empty obscenity of transparency, information and communication: ‘It is the obscenity of what no longer harbours any secret, what can be dissolved without remainder into information and communication.’11 Information as such is pornographic, because it has no cover. Eloquent, narrating is only the cover, the veil that weaves itself around the things. Covering and veiling are essential to narrative. Pornography does not tell anything. It gets right down to it, whereas the eroticism of narrative indulges in incidental details."
"A completely unbounded world lacks enchantment and magic. Enchantment depends on boundaries, transitions and thresholds."
"The disappearance of the gaze accompanies the narcissization of perception. Narcissism removes the gaze, that is, the other, and puts an imaginary mirror image in its place. Smartphones accelerate the expulsion of the other. They are digital mirrors that bring about a post-infantile return of the mirror stage. The use of smartphones means that we remain in a mirror stage that upholds an imaginary ego. The digital subjects Lacan’s triad of the real, the imaginary and the symbolic to a radical reconstruction. It dismantles the real and replaces the symbolic, which embodies shared values and norms, with the imaginary. Ultimately, the digital leads to the erosion of community."
Excellent exegesis of the parables in the New Testament employing quite the close reading and literary analytical angle; a joy to read, will read moreExcellent exegesis of the parables in the New Testament employing quite the close reading and literary analytical angle; a joy to read, will read more from the author. Some excerpts;
“When we seek universal morals from a genre that is designed to surprise, challenge, shake up, or indict and look for a single meaning in a form that opens to multiple interpretations, we are necessarily limiting the parables and, so, ourselves.”
“Rabbinic texts—Jewish texts compiled after Jesus’s time but containing materials that may well date from years before his birth—record numerous parables. The rabbinic parables frequently take the form, “I will tell (emshal) you a parable (mashal). To what can the thing be compared?” Likewise, Jesus frequently introduces parables with the expression, “The kingdom of heaven is like. . . .” To grasp the implications of the comparison—the term “parable” comes from the Greek para, “along side, together with,” as in “parallel” or “paradox,” and balo, “to cast,” “to throw”—we need to understand the nuances of each side of the equation. We immediately realize that, with such comparisons, no single meaning can ever be determined, just as no single metaphor or simile can be restricted.”
“We might be better off thinking less about what they “mean” and more about what they can “do”: remind, provoke, refine, confront, disturb. . . .”
And as an excellent example of close reading and critical analysis, in this particular instance on the meaning of the term ‘neighbor’;
“His question, “Who is my neighbor?” is on the technical level not a bad one. The Hebrew term usually translated “neighbor” (rea’), the term that appears in Leviticus 19.18, has several connotations. In Genesis 11.3, it means “fellow” or “the other guy”; the NRSV renders this verse, which concerns the building of the tower of Babel, “And they said to one another,” rather than, literally, “And said a man to his neighbor.” Exodus 33.11 uses “neighbor” to describe an intimate friendship between God and Moses. Again, the NRSV misses the technical term by translating, “The LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend”; the term translated “friend” is rea’, “neighbor.” Deuteronomy 19.14 (also 27.17) defines rea’ as a person with whom one shares a common border: “You must not move your neighbor’s boundary marker.” Jeremiah 9.4–5 warns against trusting “neighbors” as well as trusting relatives; here the connotation is others in the community. The term rea’ can also mean “lover.” Hosea 3.1 reads, “Go love a woman who has a lover”; the Hebrew says, literally, “Go love a woman, the lover of a neighbor.” Song of Songs 5.16 is, “This is my beloved and this is my friend”; the term translated “friend” is, of course, rea’. The rea’ in Proverbs 3.29 is someone who “lives trustingly beside you” and therefore against whom no harm should be planned. The context of Leviticus 19.18 suggests that the “neighbor” is to be distinguished from the “stranger” (KJV) or the “resident alien” (NRSV)....more
One of those rare, really excellent primers, that get you fired up for the subject; highly recommended reading/listening! In particular loved the nutsOne of those rare, really excellent primers, that get you fired up for the subject; highly recommended reading/listening! In particular loved the nuts-and-bolts approach by the author, who does not fall for the one-literary-school/discipline-after-another approach but really gets down to the issues the informed reader encounters when engaging the field of literary theory. Or as the author put it: "To interpret a work is to tell a story of reading."
"The genre of ‘theory’ includes works of anthropology, art history, film studies, gender studies, linguistics, philosophy, political theory, psychoanalysis, science studies, social and intellectual history, and sociology. The works in question are tied to arguments in these fields, but they become ‘theory’ because their visions or arguments have been suggestive or productive for people who are not studying those disciplines. Works that become ‘theory’ offer accounts others can use about meaning, nature, and culture, the functioning of the psyche, the relations of public to private experience and of larger historical forces to individual experience."
"Theory is often a pugnacious critique of common-sense notions, and further, an attempt to show that what we take for granted as ‘common sense’ is in fact an historical construction, a particular theory that has come to seem so natural to us that we don’t even see it as a theory. As a critique of common sense and exploration of alternative conceptions, theory involves a questioning of the most basic premisses or assumptions of literary study, the unsettling of anything that might have been taken for granted: What is meaning? What is an author? What is it to read? What is the ‘I’ or subject who writes, reads, or acts? How do texts relate to the circumstances in which they are produced?"
"So what is theory? Four main points have emerged. 1. Theory is interdisciplinary – discourse with effects outside an original discipline. 2. Theory is analytical and speculative – an attempt to work out what is involved in what we call sex or language or writing or meaning or the subject. 3. Theory is a critique of common sense, of concepts taken as natural. 4. Theory is reflexive, thinking about thinking, enquiry into the categories we use in making sense of things, in literature and in other discursive practices."
"The idea of literary competence focuses attention on the implicit knowledge that readers (and writers) bring to their encounters with texts: what sort of procedures do readers follow in responding to works as they do? What sort of assumptions must be in place to account for their reactions and interpretations? Thinking about readers and the way they make sense of literature has led to what has been called ‘reader-response criticism’, which claims that the meaning of the text is the experience of the reader (an experience that includes hesitations, conjectures, and self-corrections). If a literary work is conceived as a succession of actions upon the understanding of a reader, then an interpretation of the work can be a story of that encounter, with its ups and downs: various conventions or expectations are brought into play, connections are posited, and expectations defeated or confirmed. To interpret a work is to tell a story of reading."
"Accounts of hermeneutics frequently distinguish a hermeneutics of recovery, which seeks to reconstruct the original context of production (the circumstances and intentions of the author and the meanings a text might have had for its original readers), from a hermeneutics of suspicion, which seeks to expose the unexamined assumptions on which a text may rely (political, sexual, philosophical, linguistic)."...more
"Leave me alone when everything is fine, take care of me when it’s not. The modern patient is an impatient patient who is irritated by the limits of medicine (“incurable” is the only truly obscene word in our vocabulary), but also suspects it of having ill intentions or of being backed by shady financial interests. The more the progress of science accelerates, the more exasperation grows in the face of its flaws and delays: we cure so many diseases, so why can’t we cure them all?"
"The interior: this is the negative romance of our time, the prestige of the maternal dwelling, the house as cradle, the home as a womb. Covid was merely a midwife to the actual virus: a pre-existing allergy to the Outside."
"Nations, individuals, and families have all been won over by a fragmentation complex, which consists of reducing the space we occupy to an extreme, and results in each of us being wedged into our own niche. The transfixed crowds who march for the climate, in a way reminiscent of flagellants in the Middle Ages, do so as victims seeking to make amends rather than as political actors. They wail, scream, and cry, depriving themselves of their own agency as they protest. For a generation raised with the prospect of coming disaster, fed on the milk of terror, and persuaded of being History’s unloved ones, it’s not difficult to imagine that any exit from the cocoon might come to seem like a considerable expenditure of energy."
"Aristotle distinguished the vita activa from the vita contemplativa. We would need to invent a third category for our own time: the vita virtualis, the transformation of the apartment or the house into a microcosm that absorbs the macrocosm and renders it superfluous – a hiding place that holds all the treasures within itself. In the warmth of the cave, protected from the elements, we regard what comes from afar not as the light of Ideas but as the darkness of contingency."
"And so we’re encouraged to withdraw into ourselves, for the Outside is an abyss. Inertia is mistaken for prudence. Humanity must be placed under a glass dome. No one can endure the tragedies of our time for long without an escape valve, an excuse to go and hide. One of the most important achievements of freedom, the right to a private life, has thus been inverted: it is now equated with a renunciation of the exercise of public life."
"Only when doors and shutters are ajar does the tension between inside and outside become fertile, for this allows movement from one side to the other (the same can be said of borders, which separate people only in order to better connect them). We must oppose to paralyzing anxiety the elegance of assumed risk. It is not when we flee adversity that we become strong. We must say no to the dogmatism of closed versus open and instead insist on porosity – on a proper interval between moderation and bravery, which alone allows creative shocks. We always find our relish for life in the collision between several spheres. As Victor Segalen once said: “I was asked to choose between a hammer and a bell; I confess that I have opted for the sound they made.”...more
The old gods of science won't do anymore; scientism, linear causation in complex dynamic systems, the idea(l) of causation itself, reductionism, frequThe old gods of science won't do anymore; scientism, linear causation in complex dynamic systems, the idea(l) of causation itself, reductionism, frequency as (proxy for) probability; the authors do an admirable job in dissecting the hubris we have had in valuing our current methods of scientific enquiry and provide useful pointers for a healthy way forward; a redress and re-cognition of the philosophy in and of science; a salutary shot in the arm for scientists (and doctors!) everywhere.
"If we take the norms to be definitive or constitutive of science, then clearly one can only consider the validity of those norms by stepping outside of the scientific practice itself. Consideration of the normative aspect of science is thus inherently a philosophical and abstract enterprise rather than an empirical one. The key issue is whether the current norms of a practice could be wrong or incomplete. One cannot make this judgement from within that practice."
"Second, it has to be acknowledged that there is philosophy in science whether one likes it or not. Science rests on philosophical assumptions, including metaphysical ones. These assumptions cannot be proven by science itself, but only assumed, and this shows us that scientism is untenable."
"Epistemic humility is the view that there are some truths that are unknowable. It does not mean that there is nothing we can know, which is the claim of the sceptic, but that there are certain truths that cannot be known no matter how much other knowledge we have."
"In medicine, there are risks involved in applying the results from RCTs directly to individual patients (Greenhalgh et al. 2004). The intervention that works for most patients might not be suitable for all. Unless we assume that each individual patient is statistically average, which is unlikely, individual propensities cannot be inferred from statistical frequencies. This is a well-known problem, also referred to as the ecological fallacy."
"The norm that policy should be based on the best available evidence seems irrefutable. But we should not expect that a decision can be made just by considering the evidence. The best possible RCTs and meta-analyses might show which of the known interventions benefits most people. But there is no policy that automatically follows from that. For this we need another norm, derived not from the realm of science but from ethics."
Instantly relatable, McCarthy crafts his 'Beckett-Waiting for Godot-like' masterpiece for you to mull over and endlessly reflect on; genius.
"The wholInstantly relatable, McCarthy crafts his 'Beckett-Waiting for Godot-like' masterpiece for you to mull over and endlessly reflect on; genius.
"The whole point of where this is goin—which you wanted to know—is that they aint no jews. Aint no whites. Aint no niggers. People of color. Aint none of that. At the deep bottom of the mine where the gold is at there aint none of that. There’s just the pure ore. That forever thing. That you dont think is there. That thing that helps to keep folks nailed down to the platform when the Sunset Limited comes through. Even when they think they might want to get aboard. That thing that makes it possible to ladle out benediction upon the heads of strangers instead of curses. It’s all the same thing. And it aint but one thing. Just one."
"You give up the world line by line. Stoically. And then one day you realize that your courage is farcical. It doesnt mean anything. You’ve become an accomplice in your own annihilation and there is nothing you can do about it. Everything you do closes a door somewhere ahead of you. And finally there is only one door left."
"You cant be one of the dead because what has no existence can have no community. No community. My heart warms just thinking about it. Silence. Blackness. Aloneness. Peace. And all of it only a heartbeat away."...more
Stumbling upon 'The weary blues' set me off exploring Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance. This indispensable volume will find itself on my 'faStumbling upon 'The weary blues' set me off exploring Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance. This indispensable volume will find itself on my 'favorite' shelf in no time. So many jewels to be found here, my absolute favorites:
Dream Dust
Gather out of star-dust Earth-dust, Cloud-dust, And splinters of hail, One handful of dream-dust Not for sale.
Two Things
Two things possess the power, Two things deserve the name, Two things can reawaken Perpetually the flame. Two things are full of wonder, Two things cast off all shame.
One is known by the name of Death. And the other has no name Except the name each gives it — In no single mouth the same....more
Instant induction into my hall of favorites; it was nature writer Robert Macfarlane that set me on the path of delving into authors such as J. A. BakeInstant induction into my hall of favorites; it was nature writer Robert Macfarlane that set me on the path of delving into authors such as J. A. Baker, Barry Lopez and Nan Shepherd; it's this weird but endlessly fascinating weaving into one narrative of the experiences of the subject, the chosen object as imagined and given life by the author (in this case a mountain, but it could be any feature of nature (a peregrine, a wolf)) and the history of both subject and object; it makes for immersive, intensely rewarding reading....more
Wow, wow, wow. Instant favorite. Got to this book in two independent ways; by an online comment in an interview of Werner Herzog and as a direct recomWow, wow, wow. Instant favorite. Got to this book in two independent ways; by an online comment in an interview of Werner Herzog and as a direct recommendation in his excellent The Gifts of Reading by Robert Macfarlane, who helpfully supplemented the 50th anniversary edition with a magisterial afterword. "The hardest thing of all to see is what is really there." starts off the book and could well be its most succinct and concise synopsis. The intensely immersive descriptions of the three main 'characters'; the author, 'the peregrine' and the landscape often coalesce as to make it hard to discern who or what is being talked about. Despite the highly repetitive, visceral narrative, it never gets boring; Baker seeks peregrine, finds peregrine, peregrine seeks prey, finds, kills and devours prey and the contact is lost; repeat. In the glowing afterword, McFarlane excellently describes the feeling you're left with when leaving the book; as if you've put off highly sophisticated and ultra high-resolution virtual reality goggles. Gasping for air you realize the experience was only virtual but at the same time you want to go back, hoping that world is really still there....more
Useful, practical manual on speed reading; no subvocalizing, optimize eye movements, word chunking, strategical skimming, key-word identification, ideUseful, practical manual on speed reading; no subvocalizing, optimize eye movements, word chunking, strategical skimming, key-word identification, idea visualization and dynamic comprehension, syntopical reading; good to get to know some technical terms for something you have been doing for quite some time now. Admittedly, this only works for non-ficton; but hey, you don't want to strategically skim The Brothers Karamazov, now do you?
"Since most people currently can’t separate subvocalization from comprehension, they are locked in at a rate of about 400–500 words per minute. Moving beyond that rate requires you to embrace that your mind and eyes read faster than your mouth."...more
The OG of writing business self-help books for the masses, Covey figured it out and spelled it out for you to enjoy and actually use in your daily lifThe OG of writing business self-help books for the masses, Covey figured it out and spelled it out for you to enjoy and actually use in your daily life; the 7 habits has the big advantage of just talking plain sense; actionable concepts that actually move things forward; Covey does not fall for the, in later years, endlessly repeated formula of coining a catchy buzzword for some random business and/or psychology related phenomenon ('grit', 'doubt', 'just think', 'follow your gut', 'curiosity', 'not giving a f*ck about x') and selectively citing highly flawed popular psychology research to back up your dubious claims....more
There are no nouns in in the universe; only verbs. The world changes continuously and so do we ourselves metamorphize as we plod along, make our choicThere are no nouns in in the universe; only verbs. The world changes continuously and so do we ourselves metamorphize as we plod along, make our choices in life ending up having to live out the consequences (remember Nemesis; ' the corrector' !). Exquisite translation and recitation by Ted Hughes; the verse is majestic, visceral, epic, tragic and as fresh as if it had been penned down only yesterday. ...more
Brilliant, prescient (published in 1909!) dystopian; the sleep of natural human interactions brings forth (technological) monsters indeed! Instant favBrilliant, prescient (published in 1909!) dystopian; the sleep of natural human interactions brings forth (technological) monsters indeed! Instant favorite....more
Extremely well written and thought-through. Autocritical narrative; the author is astutely aware of how extant cultural interpretations can shape our Extremely well written and thought-through. Autocritical narrative; the author is astutely aware of how extant cultural interpretations can shape our image of the Viking phenomenon and thus instead aims to tell the story ‘from the inside out’. Brilliant history writing, highly recommended....more
One of my favorite collections of poetry. The sonnet-sequence inspired by the death of his mother, the 'clearances', is an absolute masterpiece. In adOne of my favorite collections of poetry. The sonnet-sequence inspired by the death of his mother, the 'clearances', is an absolute masterpiece. In addition, the last two poems in this slim volume; 'the disappearing island' and 'the riddle' tantalize and invite you to reflect, almost without end;
The Disappearing Island
Once we presumed to found ourselves for good Between the blue hills and those sandless shores Where we spent our desperate night in prayer and vigil,
Once we had gathered driftwood, made a hearth And hung our cauldron like a firmament, The island broke beneath us like a wave.
The land sustaining us seemed to hold firm Only when we embraced it in extremis. All I believe that happened there was a vision.
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