Books

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Love Struck

I haven’t been this in love with a book or poet since the Moby Dick, Yeats, and Walt Whitman days. My books are friends, I consume them and take them to bed with me. The  books I’ve loved (and still do) are worn and written in. Filled with marginalia. Tattered. They can barely hang unto their bindings. And we have a mutual love for all that.

But not with The Familiar. It’s different. I handle the books carefully. I keep them safe and order more. I have 1 and 2, with 3, 4, and 5 on the way. It doesn’t matter if I ever read them but I will of course. I savor the layout and graphics as much as the prose, the plot, the story. And it’s just darling of Danielewski to include the bookmark ribbon. I love the cleverness of the parts of the whole, the stories within, before, and around the plot. “One Rainy Day in May” and “Into the Forest.” Or is it “wherein the cat is found…” Then “wherein the cat is hungry…”? We’ll find out as we go along and read along and admire and get lost—or found––in the pages where there’s “More than reading.”

Danielewski promises us a total of 27 books in the series. Think on that.

As for the actual plot and story that we follow along, there’s something more, something underneath it all. Maybe something that needs to be put together. Sooner or later I’ll write about that, most likely when I’m done with the reading. I can’t see offering an outline or discription before the end. But I couldn’t wait to talk about the books, love struck as I am. And I can’t see how I could ever be done with these books after I’ve read them. This is a lasting love, even tho it pains me not to write and draw on the pages.

Xanther’s the Zero and Xanther’s the Drain. We’ll see how this all turns out. She (a 12-year-old-epileptic) is our guide throughout the more than 800 pages of each book. At least through the first group of books. We’ll have to wait and see what happens within the next group. I’m not willing to venture a guess.

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Meanwhile…

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posted by Good Reads

A photo. It catches the eye and then the attention. From the attention I decide to keep or to pass by. If kept I redesign, wander through the room(s), move this or that. Seeking my place in that universe. Things to admire: the desk in front of a window (who are those putting a desk in front of a wall?). The boxes with doors within the shelves. The window within the shelves. The ladder. The loft.

Meanwhile, I jot down thoughts and sketches on the notebook next to me and the computer on the desk that is in front of the window. The thoughts and sometimes the sketches are for the current novel or a future one, or nothing. Just because some thoughts require writing.

Meanwhile, I reconfigure the loft so that it is open on the end and extends a walkway in front of the books and to the ladder. This I do in my mind rather than on paper as I could spend the rest of my life doing architectural drawings. And that belongs to some past of mine.

So then, maybe then I have a photo to post.

 

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In Searching

InrmView3 searching we so often come across that something else of interest. This has gotten me days of research, poems, notes for fiction, and just plain enjoyment. September adds the walks in the woods, the dog romps, and the dreams of other days. And of course, new books to buy. And old ones to pause through. In books where I’ve made notes or started whole conversations, I often reply to myself or do indeed take note. Somethings I need to relearn. Others remind me where I once lived in my mind and how far away from that state of being I have become.

And then here I am once more, in the light of golden days.

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Yesterday’s Connections

philomat

John Locke

John Locke was a 17th-century English philosopher whose ideas formed the foundation of liberal democracy and greatly influenced both the American and French revolutions. His birthday was yesterday, August 29.

Locke was the Liberal Classicist who also appeared in Lost, the TV show of some fame—at least it seemed that way to me. I thought the characters on Lost were a metaphor for others, John Locke being the most obvious. This worked for a while until it became too much to make the match ups. The connections between actions and philosophies of the characters. After all, I did have a job to go to.

mary-shelley1readAddicts

Mary Shelley-Posted by Reading Addicts

When I was teaching I had the kids read Frankenstein. “I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, at the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion.”

The thing they struggled with most was that a woman had written the story. It was the idea of such horrific thoughts coming from that beautiful woman. They were very young.

Mary’s birthday is today, August 30.

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What Of Time

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Posted by GoodReads

This house seems as if it’s made to reflect a previous century—18th? 19th? Note the slate floors, the many rugs of colors and design. The books gone beyond the library and into the sitting room. See the book on the book stand there? Music or Art, one in any case.

And we wonder what our ancestors (without the information) would make of today’s date—the ECLIPSE. The end of the world? And I must go now and ready myself for that very thing. Will the animals go silent? Will the music close off? What world, what century, what time does this touch?