RESTARTING

 

The blogger has been "on hiatus" for a bit, due to relocation...some 2700 miles across the country. I rather missed this discipline of writing something with (I hope) a bit of substance to it on a regular basis.

While not a huge fan of the Bronte sisters, I find myself in agreement with the graphic!




RESTARTING

Restart.
   Closed door.
     Open door.

Ensconced in Maine once again,
   wondering what the future holds?

The future flows to the brave and bold.
   (Thus, per my parents told)
Fortune favors those who work
   Not the ones whose duty shirk.

This yr, I'll be working on marketing the books that are occupying closet space...
...anyone for a good book? Gifts? For yourself?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-lTxbB6dhY711OvAcoP7JH7e7aKTqMcOeWd0dF0fXM0/edit?usp=sharing

and...
--working on more stories for my grand kids,
--continuing to write a poem a day,
--plugging away at reading "the great books" using the sample list toward the bottom of this Wikipedia page,
--working on a fictionalized biography of King Solomon,

and, listening to the Still, Small Voice.

Let Them Go Free!

In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends imprisoned by an enchanter in paper and leathern boxes.

 

--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) --

Friends and enchanters, come to me!
   Wink your eyes and tap your feet
Come tell your tales of horror and glee
   I cannot wait for us to meet!

I'd write more, but I've gotta hot book to read, bye!

(Oh, all right. I'm reading something that transports me across centuries and across the ocean--historic fiction, set in Europe. The characters are believable, and the plot feels like real life--some things go well, and others are a face-plant into concrete ranging from wet to solid!)

Been transported by a book lately? A recent fav of both the Blogger and the Mrs. was Stephen King's 11/22/63. We traveled through time and space to a weird take on "reality" that had none of King's rather-common gore and guts...enchanting and just a little bit scary...that wonderful kinda book that was hard to put down.

How's that for a book criterion--"I had a hard time putting it down. Go, pick one up today"?

There are too many books I haven’t read, too many places I haven’t seen, too many memories I haven’t kept long enough.

--Irving Shaw--

There's something about that quote that I resonate with. Let's start with books:
--first, I keep a list of books to read. Some have been recommended by friends. Others I've read reviews. Others are continuations of series.
--then, there are the lists of "best books of..." the 20th century...the decade, etc.
--finally, there are the "Great books." A few colleges make this cluster of classics the foundation of their curriculum.

Last year I read 125 books. 37 were non-fiction, or so they claimed! This year I'm putting a bigger emphasis on classics of fiction/Great Books, and on non-fiction.




Next, today's quote laments places not yet seen...I know that tugs at a lot of people's hearts and minds. Mine too. We drive by a little copse of woods and I think, I'd love to go poke around and see what there is to be found--a stand of wildflowers? artifacts of yesteryear? a glimpse of wildlife? a memory to be stored away for a rainy day?

We drive over a stream and I wonder, what's around that next bend?

We go thru an historic town and I think--I'd like to mosey around, then read some of their local history.

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I guess those are some of the reasons that I write: I can explore, analyze, and remember--some of it fictive, some factual, and all of it a feast for my God-given curiosity--may it lead me straight to the Source!

Staring out the window and dreaming of dreaming.

People ask me what I do in the winter when there's no baseball.
I'll tell you...
I stare out the window and wait for spring.

--Rogers Hornsby.

Staring out the window: malady or magic?

I think staring out the window is part of the magic of humankind. Staring out the window, or at the fireplace, or at the surf or the back lawn...it's all the same: fertile terrain for the imagination. (That's why staring at the television doesn't do it: there's no room for the imagination, we are the passive recipients of sound and images conjured up by others' imaginings!)

I think there should be 15 minutes a day  devoted to staring out the window...for every schoolroom, office, factory, hospital or home. Our brains need time to muse, digest, reflect, and to create--time to take facts apart and reassemble them in day-dreamy disorder, then reorder. Then, it's time bring in something else from another realm: stir, taste, repeat!

Look what happens when we dream--some is rehash, but some is strange, new, alien--I dream of faces and places I know I've never seen, of events that never occurred, of magical transformations, and of possibilities that would be inconceivable (yes, that word does mean what I think it means!) in the waking state. I'm reminded of the famous solution to the structure of the six-carbon molecule called benzene: there was no explanation for how six carbon atoms could occur together with only six hydrogen atoms. The chemist Kekule was baffled. No way. Didn't add up. Period. Until...a dream, of a snake with its tail in its mouth, a dream that worked its way into his waking thoughts--sha-zaam! The benzene molecule is a ring! (Okay, it's a geeky illustration. Tough! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Kekul%C3%A9 )

Once I dreamed of an Englishwoman who spoke fluent Latin; no, effort-less Latin. She was a regal lass with dark hair, tall and slender and beautiful and utterly unaware of the power of her presence. This lady WILL appear in a story, but, thus far, she's only appeared in a dream. But, she is going to come to life and speak in the story that I shall pen. It'll be new, alien, and--buh-bye, gotta go write her into existence.

From dream to reality--10% inspiration. 90% perspiration.

On reading Homer's ILIAD.

On reading Homer's ILIAD

I take some small pride in having read

   a tale that speaks of doom and dread,

a tale of warfare, love, and death

   tale of gasping, dying breath.

I traveled back in time, you see

   to Grecian warfare, breathlessly

describing gore with all due diligence

   and though some fought with innocence

the Gods descending, meddling

   their selfish agendas peddling;

heroes dying, some surviving

   mankind's lot: ever striving

Fighting fate, fighting doom

   all within my living room

I shut the book, pent breath release

   I'm back home, and all's at peace.

----(dls...if you hadnae guessed.)

Okay, that's my take on the Iliad. I found it repetitive and dull, breathless and flowery, overblown and underplotted. I found it tedious to read and exciting to look back at--I just read a story that's some 2,700 years old!

I feel enriched and wiser, more in touch with some of the deeper roots of western culture. Hmm, I guess the doc was right--I swallowed the tart-tasting medicine and it really was good for me.

Here's Robert Browing's take on THE ILIAD:

robert browning "development"

http://www.telelib.com/authors/B/BrowningRobert/verse/asolando/development.html


After reading Browning's poem, I'm all the more pleased to have read this epic tale, since the Iliad plays a part of our history and culture, on which modern literary roots feed. To whit: the movie TROY, 2006, was a retake on the Iliad.

Thinking as a writer--hmm...I looked at the book first of all from a modern viewpoint: hence, my harsh critique above. However, if I step outside our modern context and try to view it in its own context, as much as is possible from a distance of 2,700 yrs...well, it's epic! In the original Greek, it had meter but did not rhyme, yet, the mark of an educated man was the ability to recite the Iliad (and its sequel, the 400 page Odyssey) from memory!

Boring analysis, perhaps, but that's what I'm learning. And, doggone...it's fun!

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"It was Homer who formed the character of the Greek nation. No poet has ever, as a poet, exercised a similar influence over his countrymen. Prophets, lawgivers, and sages have formed the character of other nations; it was reserved to a poet to form that of the Greeks."