“Do you love me?”
There was an awkward silence for a moment. Then Father gave a little chuckle. “Jonas. You, of all people. Precision of language, please!”
“What do you mean?” Jonas asked. Amusement was not at all what he had anticipated.
“Your father means that you used a very generalized word, so meaningless that it’s become almost [...]
Archive for the ‘Book Reviews’ Category
22 Nov
“We really have to protect people from wrong choices.”
5 Nov
The Woman in White
I feel as though nearly every post lately has been somehow related to academia–books or poetry I’ve read or lessons I’ve taught (and subsequently learned). My life is consumed with this realm; ergo, my blog reflects that. You’re welcome.
Yesterday morning, I read page 617 of Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White and snapped the book [...]
23 Oct
“I think the asking is whether we get back up again.”
“Maybe our story will turn out differently if we take the left fork, maybe the bad things that are waiting to happen to us won’t happen, maybe there’s happiness at the end of the left fork and warm places with the people who love us and no Noise but no silence neither and there’s plenty [...]
16 Oct
“Only weeks before the guns all came and rained on everyone”
“I lie in bed at night after ending my prayers with the words ["Thank you, God, for all that is good and dear and beautiful"] and I’m filled with joy. I think of going into hiding, my health and my whole being as [good]; Peter’s love (which is still so new and fragile and which [...]
14 Aug
The Road
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one’s heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes. So, he whispered to the sleeping boy. I [...]
13 Jul
American Bloomsbury
In preparation for our trip to New England, I’ve once again picked up American Bloomsbury, which is about Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, the Alcotts, and Margaret Fuller, the writers who shaped American literature. Susan Cheever attempts to portray the real lives of these auspicious men and women. She states in chapter 1: “[T]his is not only a [...]
29 Jun
Violence, Victims, Vaudeville, Vengeance, Victory: V for Vendetta.
“The only freedom left to my people is the freedom to starve. The freedom to die. The freedom to live in a world of chaos. Should I allow that freedom? I think not. I think not.”
-Adam Susan, leader of Fascist England
* * *
“Her name is anarchy. And she has taught me more as a mistress [...]
3 Jun
The Sea of Trolls
“It was a world of loss far more terrible than the songs of vanished Utgard. It was more devastating than the destruction of Gizur Thumb-Crusher’s village. It was Everything Gone. The voices of the Norns whispered about the passing of all that was bright and brave and beautiful. You could only watch it die. You [...]
1 May
On Art and Time
“Time seems to pass. The world happens, unrolling into moments, and you stop to glance at a spider pressed to its web. There is a quickness of light and a sense of things outlined precisely and streaks of running luster on the bay. You know more surely who you are on a strong bright day [...]
22 Feb
Fire is bright and fire is clean.
Last night, I thought about all the kerosene I’ve used in the last ten years. And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of the books. A man had to think them up. A man had to take a long time to put them [...]
