Due to many recent changes (a new job being the big one) as well as kids’ (and my) illnesses has led to zero reading lately. So I’ll leave you with one of the funnier comments I’ve seen lately on William Faulkner’s work. Not to mention timely, since I’ll be visiting Alabama later this week: Lucy: […]
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A few links with background information on William Faulkner and As I Lay Dying: William Faulkner William Faulkner on the Web (hosted by the University of Mississippi)—plenty of pages on his life and works as well as information on Oxford and Rowan Oak. Extensive details on his life at the Faulkner Archives (again from Ole […]
Book 8, lines 245-253 in a Greek manuscript of the late fifth or early sixth century AD Picture source Generations of men are like the leaves. In winter, winds blow them down to earth, but then, when spring season comes again, the budding wood grows more. And so with men— one generation grows, another dies […]
This is a partial review of Alessandro Baricco’s An Iliad (translated by Ann Goldstein)—partial because I could not finish it. The book does raise interesting questions (more about his choices, but some about the original work). I’ll outline Baricco’s introduction and end note (in slightly different order than he presented them) and then go into […]
Andromache mourning Hector Jacques-Louis David “Revere the gods, Achilles! Pity me in my own right, Remember your own father! I deserve more pity… I have endured what no one on earth has ever done before— I put to my lips the hands of the man who killed my son.” Book XXIV, lines 588 – 591 […]
Automedon with the Horses of Achilles by Henri Regnault And Iris racing the wind went veering off as Achilles, Zeus’ favorite fighter, rose up now and over his powerful shoulder Pallas slung the shield, the tremendous storm-shield with all its tassels flaring— and crowning his head the goddess swept a golden cloud and from it […]
Menelaus and Meriones lifting Patroclus’ body on a cartPicture source Book XIII continues the battle among the ships. The Achaeans are now fighting a defensive battle, trying to protect their only way home. The ebb and flow of the battle changes as the gods participate. Zeus has instructed no interference from other gods, but Poseidon […]
The Ambassadors to Agamemnon Visiting Achilles Jean Auguste-Dominique IngresBook IX begins with Agamemnon declaring that Zeus has tricked him and he is planning on going home. Unlike Book II’s ruse, this time he seems to mean it. This is an interesting time for him to feel that way. Things have gone badly during the recent […]
Aphrodite Wounded by Diomedes Jean Auguste-Dominique IngresBook V belongs to Diomedes despite Zeus’ agreement allowing the Trojans temporary ascendancy on the battlefield. I find the interplay between gods and humans fascinating, the gods protecting or abandoning people at the god’s whim. The battles that the gods wage against each other, using humans as intermediaries, must […]
The beginning of The Iliad Picture source Sing, Goddess, sing of the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus— that murderous anger which condemned Achaeans to countless agonies and threw many warrior souls deep into Hades, leaving their dead bodies carrion food for dogs and birds— all in fulfilment of the will of Zeus. Start at […]
Homer invoking the muse Illustration by John Flaxman, engraving by William Blake Picture sourceEnter The Iliad on a search engine and you will get close to one million matches. I only went through the first few pages of results and found the following links helpful: Various versions of the text at Project Gutenberg and at […]
Picture source From the Kafka Project: The cover illustration is a lithograph by Ottomar Starke. When Kafka learned that Starke was to do an illustration, he wrote: “The insect itself must not be illustrated by a drawing. It cannot be shown at all, not even from a distance”. Online resources for Franz Kafka and The […]
Feel free to skip this…it is essentially me thinking out loud… This blog originally started as a conversational place for personal finance bloggers who liked to read. It floundered quickly for various reasons, not the least because it was everyone’s second or third place to post on top of having to deal with everyday life. […]
Gravestone and plaque for Kafka family, Prague “Theoretically there is a perfect possibility of happiness: believing in the indestructible element in oneself and not striving towards it.” — Franz Kafka Back to my Modernism kick with a short work by Kafka. I don’t believe I’ve read any of his work since college, so it will […]
Statue of Machado de Assis at the Academia Brasileira de Letras (Machado was the first president of the Academy) Picture source“Time is an invisible web on which everything may be embroidered.” — Machado de Assis A wonderful introduction to an author that I had not heard about until recently. If it is possible to make […]
That Stendhal should have confessed to have written one of his books for a hundred readers is something that brings on wonder and concern. Something that will not cause wonder and probably no concern is whether this other book will have Stendhal’s hundred readers, or fifty, or twenty, or even ten. Ten? Five perhaps. The […]
Picture source Chapter CXXXV: Oblivion… Put that name in small caps. OBLIVION! It’s only proper that all honor be paid to a personage so despised and so worthy, a last-minute gues at the party, but a sure one. The lady who dazzled at the dawn of the present reign knows it and, even more painfully, […]
I’m beginning to regret this book. Not that it bores me, I have nothing to do and, really, putting together a few meager chapters for that other world is always a task that distracts me a little from eternity a little. But the book is tedious, it has the smell of the grave about it; […]
Well, you can tell what we did this weekend, much to the chagrin of a few pumpkins. Not much in the way of links this week since the Chrees household has been busy with spookier things. That being said… Brideshead undermined (link is dead) It seems the recent movie version of Evelyn Waugh’s novel decided […]
Rua Direita no Rio de Janeiro (by Johann Moritz Rugendas) Brás Cubas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Virgília . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brás […]