raccolta di citazioni

a commonplace for quotes from my current reading

2006-08-31

A predilection for little fur hats

Mr. L. Prosser was, as they say, only human. In other words, he was a carbon-based bipedal life form descended from an ape. More specifically, he was forty, fat and shabby and worked for the local council. Curiously enough, though he didn't know it, he was also a direct male-line descendant of Genghis Khan, though intervening generations and racial mixing had so juggled his genes that he had no discernable Mongoloid characteristics, and the only vestiges left in Mr. L. Prosser of his mighty ancestry were a pronounced stoutness about the tum and a predilection for little fur hats. [7]

Adams, Douglas. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Harmony Books, 2004. ISBN: 1400052920.

Yes, I'm finally reading it, Sven!

2006-08-30

A Dialogue on Moreau

Peter Straub: What sort of book is it, this Island of Dr. Moreau? As one races pell-mell through the narrative, moving smartly from one nasty shock to another on the way toward revelation and resolution, it seems like nothing so much as a boy's adventure novel adapted to the field of science fiction. [ix]

Margaret Atwood: 'Science fiction' as a term was unknown to Wells. [...] Wells himself referred to his science-oriented fictions as 'scientific romances' [...] There are several interpretations of the term 'science'. If it implies the known and the possible, then Wells's scientific romances are by no means scientific: he paid little attention to such boundaries. In both 'scientific romance', and 'science fiction', the scientific element is merely an adjective; the nouns are 'romance' and 'fiction'. [xvii-xviii]

Straub: For the most part, the tone of the narrative is that of reliability and assurance, blandly professional in its assumptions about the contract between reader and writer. Dear reader, this tone seems to say, come along with me, for I guarantee an entertaining journey and a safe return to shore. [...] To Wells' enormous credit, [the first readers] did not find anything so reassuring. [R]eviewers recoiled from the book as if it carried a contagious disease, excoriating Wells for the horrors to which he had exposed the tender reader, the chief among them being blasphemy. [x]

Atwood: [I]n Christianity, God is a Trinity, and on Moreau's island, there are three beings whose names begin with M. [...] [Moreau] means 'Moor' in French. So the very white Moreau is also the Black Man of witchcraft tales, a sort of anti-God. [xxii] But he isn't a real God, because he cannot create; he can only imitate, and his imitations are poor. [xxi] [Montgomery] acts as the intercessor between the Beast Folk and Moreau, and in this function stands in for Christ the Son. [...] Is there a hint of the communion service here - blood drink, flesh of the Lamb? [...] [M'Ling] too enters into the communion of blood.... The Holy Spirit as a deformed and idiotic man-animal? As a piece of youthful blasphemy, The Island of Dr. Moreau was even more blasphemous than most commentators have realized. [xxii]

Straub: Since vivisection...was a controversial method of research, a novel with an anti-vivisection bias should have had no problem with general acceptance; but a fable in which religion appears to be a manipulative sham, science a poisonous threat, and mankind in general so thoroughly implicated in a Mad Vivisectionist's savagery that man himself is a ravening beast was another matter. [xii]

Atwood: Borges' use of the word 'fable' is suggestive, for [...] '[f]able' points to a certain fokloric quality that lurks in the pattern of this curious work.... [xiii] The Island of Dr. Moreau is...a work of fantasy, and its' more immediate grandparents are to be found elsewhere. The Tempest springs immediately to mind.... [xx]

Straub: [Prendick] cannot escape the perception that civilization is but a larger version of the island. Wells has so liberated himself from the conventions and underlying consolations of the adventure tale that his subtext floods up onto the page. The optimistic Edwardian world softens and gutters into fresh horrors, gibberish, and intimations of death. Author and narrator have come to the heart of darkness, and it is...London. [xxvi-xxvii]

Atwood: There are no female human being on Moreau's island, but Moreau is busy making one. [...] Like many men of his time, Wells was obsessed with the New Woman. On the surface of it he was all in favor of sexual emancipation...but the freeing of Woman apparently had its frightening aspects. [I]f women are granted power, men are doomed.... Once the powerful monstrous sexual cat tears her fetter out of the wall and gets loose, minus the improved brain she ought to have courtesy of Man the Scientist, look out. [xxiii]

Straub: In various ways, [Wells' late-life pessimism] inhabits Dr. Moreau, and one reason the book continues to be vital is that Wells can be seen throughout to resist and deny the implications suggested by his own imaginiation. [xiii]
_____

Margaret Atwood, Foreword to The Island of Dr. Moreau, Penguin Classics edition, 2005. ISBN: 014144102X.

Peter Straub, Foreword to The Island of Dr. Moreau, Modern Library edition, 1996. ISBN: 0679602305.

for the August Slaves of Golconda reading group, selected by Stefanie

2006-08-25

Alaskan summer evening

It was a beautiful sunny night on the water. Alice was ecstatic about the wilderness she had discovered and the eskimo culture, intertwined in peaceful harmony with the seasons and the mountains and the wind, and all the magazine stories she could write. Warm air blew by our faces. Occasionally we motored through pockets of cold air near shaded cutbanks. Cottonwood cotton floated on the water. The land was dry and wild rhubarb was already beginning to go to seed along the shore, and that meant wild onions would soon be past, too, and the bull caribou would have dark velvety horns, and the bulls would be getting fat but would still taste like summer meat from eating greens; and salmon would be flooding upstream to spawn, and trout would follow, silver-blue and heavy with oil; and it all was truly wonderful, but something irked me about the way this pretty woman -- who might never see the land we called winter -- could swoop in and harvest our world with her camera and words and spoon it back as if only she understood its profundity. [299-300]

Kantner, Seth. Ordinary Wolves : A novel. Milkweed Editions, 2005. ISBN: 1571310479.

2006-08-23

Daring to leap into transcendence

No one ever told us we had to study our lives,
make of our lives a study, as if learning natural history
or music, that we should begin
with the simple exercises first
and slowly go on trying
the hard ones, practicing till strength
and accuracy became one with the daring
to leap into transcendence, take the chance
of breaking down in the wild arpeggio
or faulting the full sentence of the fugue. [73]

from 'Transcendental Etude' (1977)

Rich, Adrienne. The Dream of a Common Language: Poems, 1974-1977. W.W. Norton, 1978. ISBN: 0393045021.

2006-08-22

Baptized into the glory of ninja

Bruce Lee arrived in moving color on the back wall of the Takunak church house in February 1978, the year I turned twelve. Takunak had been converted by missionary Quakers, but everyone under seventy, regardless of whether they spoke English, lined up at the cabin door to be baptized into the glory of ninja. [...] Three glass windows in the school were broken the following night with throwing stars of frozen Cream of Wheat. [44]

Kantner, Seth. Ordinary Wolves : A novel. Milkweed Editions, 2005. ISBN: 1571310479.

for Sven (aka Ken, thwarter of ninjas)

2006-08-19

The French disease

"I had hoped," Karswell continued, his voice the very model of pained disappointment, "that of all my junior colleagues, you might have remained professionally chaste. Your dissertation, while deficient in certain crucial respects, was admirably reasonable for someone your age." He gazed sorrowfully through the blinds, tapping her rolled-up paper against his palm. His face was in shadow, but strips of light fell across his waistcoat and his bow tie.

"But I see that you are, or have become," he went on, "intellectually promiscuous, giving yourself wantonly, like the rest of your thrill-seeking generation, to the vulgar pleasures of postmodernism."
[...]
"And what is the result of your promiscuity, my dear Virginia?" Kaswell seemed to be waiting for an answer, but she would deny him that at least. After an awful moment, he lifted her paper by a corner between his thumb and forefinger, letting it uncurl like a shriveled flower.

"The result," he said sharply, "is that you have become infected with the French disease." [192-193]

Hynes, James. Publish and Perish: Three Tales of Tenure and Terror. Picador, 1997. ISBN: 0312156286.

2006-08-18

Outlaw women

View back over the shoulder, crick
in the neck, suspicious of even
that three-legged dog in the road
teetering like a birthing chair.
Hand always at the gun, trigger for a
ghost in window glass. So hyper-
active, you can't keep your hands
to yourself while you sit in your
corner knitting your private angel. [13]

from 'What it is like to be an outlaw'

Messer, Sarah. Bandit Letters : Poems. Western Michigan University / New Issues, 2001. ISBN: 1930974086.

------

we're driving through the desert
wondering if the water will hold out
the hallucinations turn to simple villages
the music on the radio comes clear—
neither Rosenkavalier nor Götterdämmerung
but a woman's voice singing old songs
with new words, with a quiet bass, a flute
plucked and fingered by women outside the law. [31]

from XIII of 'Twenty-one Love Poems' (1974-1976)

Rich, Adrienne. The Dream of a Common Language: Poems, 1974-1977. W.W. Norton, 1978. ISBN: 0393045021.

That modulated cantata of the wild

What beast would turn its life into words?
What atonement is this all about?
-- and yet, writing words like these, I'm also living.
Is all this close to the wolverines' howled signals,
that modulated cantata of the wild? [28]

from VII of 'Twenty-one Love Poems' (1974-1976)

Rich, Adrienne. The Dream of a Common Language: Poems, 1974-1977. W.W. Norton, 1978. ISBN: 0393045021.

2006-08-17

Spies of the apocalyse

Louis turned in to Pigeon's street and noticed a cat in a bakery window passively taking in the world. He smiled at it: the rescued dog had given him a feeling of communion with animals. Paris was full of cats, he realized, who held that aloofness of looking down from a height. But mostly they were asleep in wine- and cheese-shop windows. They were silent witnesses, spies of the apocalyse. Louis suspected that cats, like the souls of the dead, could not be photographed. [152-153]

Smith, Dominic. The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre. Atria Books. ISBN: 0743271149.

Thanks to Susan for originally typing this in.

2006-08-16

Trapezoids of sunshine

Louis looked at the painting and felt, for the first time, an almost painful sense of pride. It had taken him a full year to paint. He had mixed the colors to match a June dawn, preserving the exact tints of the cornices and the facades of the sky on the backs of envelopes. Using a camera obscura, he had painstakingly copied the shadow lines and the trapezoids of sunshine. There were a hundred shades of yellow and blue trapped inside the painting, a thousand inflections of daylight and shadow. Without knowing it, Louis Daguerre had tried to paint a photograph. [127-128]

Smith, Dominic. The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre. Atria Books. ISBN: 0743271149.

2006-08-15

umore Italiano

ITALIAN STUDENTS WIN PROGRAMMING CONTEST
At the 2006 Imagine Cup programming contest, held in Delhi, India, a team of Italian students took first prize in the Software Design category. The competition, sponsored by Microsoft, brought together teams from more than 100 countries competing in six categories. For its winning entry, the four students from Turin Polytechnic built an application that collects information that patients typically don't disclose to their doctors but is nonetheless an important part of the diagnosis and treatment of their symptoms. The winning team, which pocketed $25,000 for its victory, said their application, called "Hello World," could be especially beneficial for people who suffer from anxiety disorders.

BBC, 14 August 2006, via Edupage

2006-08-10

Our Nation's Bounty

Our Nation's Bounty has a barn façade and a few real tractors and a stuffed farmer, but they've located it next to Riches from the Bowels of the Earth and in my opinion cows aren't stupid. What I mean to say is, certainly they are stupid, but they have sound enough instincts to know that a functioning scaled-down coal mine with collegiate tour guides in hard hats is not part of any farm.

The cow looks up at me kindly as I come in.

I kneel down and pretend to Windex her panel. Inside there's plenty of activity. The idea was to provide schoolchildren insight into the digestive process of a large mammal. They claim the dyes aren't toxic. I would think however that the flesh / Plexiglas junction must be a source of constant irritation. But compassion is not why I've killed six to date. I've killed them because I like to make Mr. Spencer sad. Because of me he's pinned down in Cleaning, and Curation is out of the question. Because of me the see-through cow is a boondoggle and a white elephant and Spencer is a laughingstock.

It feels good to finally be asserting oneself. [84-85]

Saunders, George. "Downtrodden Mary's Failed Campaign of Terror", in CivilWarLand in Bad Decline: Stories and a Novella. Random House, 1996. ISBN: 0679448128.

2006-08-09

I plan to be ill for some time

Holding his eye to the hole in the curtain, he looked out at the late afternoon. The sun was going down behind the grain fields, and as it descended, it shot an orange glow from behind the hedgerows and poplars. Louis held the piece of white linen in front of the small curtain hole and saw, projected on it, the shimmering image of the lone walnut tree that stood by the stone fence. At the time he thought it merely a trick of nature or the convalescing mind, but years later, he would realize the importance of this discovery. The compression of light through the small hole had borne along the image of the walnut tree, projecting it onto the ceiling. Nature could sketch herself. He was growing into a man inside a dark chamber, a camera obscura fashioned by worn curtain fabric and August light. He went back to his bed and wrote in his journal: I plan to be ill for some time. [21]

Smith, Dominic. The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre. Atria Books. ISBN: 0743271149.

recommended by Susan

2006-08-08

The continuous movement toward perfection

When they got out of the carriage at Oreanda they sat down on a bench not far from the church, and looked down at the sea, without talking. Yalta could be dimly discerned through the morning mist, and white clouds rested motionless on the summits of the mountains. Not a leaf stirred, the grasshoppers chirruped, and the monotonous hollow roar of the sea came up to them, speaking of peace, of the eternal sleep lying in wait for us all. The sea had roared like this long before there was any Yalta or Oreanda, it was roaring now, and it would go on roaring, just as indifferently and hollowly, when we had passed away. And it may be that in this continuity, this utter indifference to the life and death of each of us lies hidden the pledge of our eternal salvation, of the continuous movement of life on earth, of the continuous movement toward perfection.

Chekov, Anton. "Lady with Lapdog." In Matlaw, Ralph E. (ed.) Anton Chekhov's Short Stories (Norton Critical Edition), pp. 221-235. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0393090027.

for Kate's short story reading group.

2006-08-06

Band names

The Poles were in from Bayonne, along with Eleven Jewish Korean War Veterans, Films Par Excellence, and the Catlips from Ridgewood, and Those Guys Who Strangled Their Wives, and Associated Traction, and Chrome; The Smirkes; Consuela, Gloria, Judy or June (all the way from Sparta), and another band called the Baedeker Girls, and the Hammerheads, the Leeches, the Fishguards who were really a splinter faction from the Voltaires and had the keyboard guy from Three Days in the Penitentiary playing harmonica for the evening -- Max yelled continuously at Dennis, as they made their first pass around the roof -- and then there was a girl who wanted to do folk songs who had once been the manager of Soldier of Fortune, and there was a real loser who had been like a roady for Gulping First Drinks, and a pair of speed metal bands, Terminello and the Valkyrie. Those guys from D'Onofrio were there. The girls from Critical Ma$$. Only Nick the drummer wasa missing.

What Max was saying was that every rock and roll band in this whole half of the Garden State was at L.G.'s party. [107]

Moody, Rick. Garden State. Pushcart Press, 1992. ISBN: 0916366731.

2006-08-05

Cartographies of Silence

If from time to time I envy
the pure annunciations of the eye

the visio beatifica
if from time to time I long to turn

like the Eleusinian hierophant
holding up a simple ear of grain

for return to the concrete and everlasting world
what in fact I keep choosing

are these words, these whispers, conversations
from which time after time the truth breaks moist and green.

from 'Cartographies of Silence' (1975)

Rich, Adrienne. The Dream of a Common Language: Poems, 1974-1977. W.W. Norton, 1978. ISBN: 0393045021.

2006-08-04

I can see you with my heart

I sat down careful and Gloria Dump made me a peanut butter sandwich on white bread.

Then she made one for herself and put her false teeth in, to eat it; when she was done, she said to me, "You know, my eyes ain't too good at all. I can't see nothing but the general shape of things, so I got to rely on my heart. Why don't you go on and tell me everything about yourself, so as I can see you with my heart."

And because Winn-Dixie was looking up at her like she was the best thing he had ever seen, and because the peanut-butter sandwich had been so good, and because I had been waiting for a long time to tell some person everything about me, I did. [65-66]

DiCamillo, Kate. Because of Winn-Dixie. Candlewick Press, 2000. ISBN: 0763607762.

An incident at the Herman W. Block Memorial Library

"Then what happened?" I asked her.

"Well," said Miss Franny, "I looked at him and he looked at me. He put his big nose up in the air and sniffed and sniffed as if he was trying to decide if a little-miss-know-it-all librarian was what he was in the mood to eat. And I sat there. And then I thought, 'Well, if this bear intends to eat me, I am not going to let it happen without a fight. No ma'am.' So very slowly and very carefully, I raised up the book I was reading."

"What book was that?" I asked.

"Why, it was War and Peace, a very large book. I raised it up slowly and then I aimed it carefully and I threw it right at that bear and screamed, 'Be gone!' And do you know what?"

"No, ma'am," I said.

"He went. But this is what I will never forget. He took the book with him."

"Nuh-uh," I said.

"Yes, ma'am," said Miss Franny. "He snatched it up and ran." [48-49]

DiCamillo, Kate. Because of Winn-Dixie. Candlewick Press, 2000. ISBN: 0763607762.

recommended by Sven

2006-08-03

It was simple to meet you

It was simple to meet you, simple to take your eyes
into mine, saying: these are eyes I have known
from the first....It was simple to touch you
against the hacked background, the grain of what we
had been, the choices, years....It was even simple
to take each other's lives in our hands, as bodies.

What is not simple: to wake from drowning
from where the ocean beat inside us like an afterbirth
into this common, acute particularity
these two selves who walked half a lifetime untouching -
to wake to something deceptively simple: a glass
sweated with dew, a ring of the telephone, a scream
of someone beaten up far down the street
causing each of us to listen to her own inward scream [8]

from 'Origins and History of Consciousness'


I believe I am choosing something new
not to suffer uselessly       yet still to feel
Does the infant memorize the body of the mother
and create her in absence?       or simply cry
primordial loneliness?       does the bed of the stream
once diverted       mourning       remember wetness? [10]

from 'Splittings'

Rich, Adrienne. The Dream of a Common Language: Poems, 1974-1977. W.W. Norton, 1978. ISBN: 0393045021.

recommended by Stefanie

2006-08-02

Memory

Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders. [119]

Faulkner, William. Light in August. Vintage, 1991 [1932]. ISBN: 0679732268.

2006-08-01

One book...

from Susan

1. One book that changed your life:
The Solace of Leaving Early. Haven Kimmel
2. One book that you’ve read more than once:
A Wrinkle in Time. Madeleine L'Engle
3. One book you’d want on a desert island:
Desalination for Dummies. Or Calvino's Italian Folktales.
4. One book that made you laugh:
Lunch at the Picadilly. Clyde Edgerton
5. One book that made you cry:
Servants of the Map. Andrea Barrett
6. One book that you wish had been written:
The Complete Short Stories of Flannery O'Connor, Vol. 2 (1964-2006)
7. One book that you wish you'd never read (formerly 'One book that you wish had never been written'):
The Grand Complication. Allen Kurzweil
8. One book you’re currently reading:
Continent. Jim Crace
9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
Blindness. Jose Saramago
10. Now tag five people:
Well, the people whose answers I'd be most interested in seeing have already done it, so if you haven't yet, go look at the responses by Susan, Stefanie, Kate, Dorothy, and Danielle.