Gabriel Clarke > Recent Status Updates

Increasingly, devastatingly sad. And as dense as plutonium.

I am too awake, too early, and have read too much of this for five in the morning. But it does make me wonder whether I have been too concerned for too many years with where I'm going and the fear of where I'm going rather than where I am.

Clearly not a beginner's text by any means but fascinating, almost as much for what it tells us about Jodorowsky...

So far, fascinating. It does make me wish that I could read a short history of Christendom written by a Muslim scholar with the equivalent kind of religious/secular career experience that informs Armstrong's perspective. Anyone know of one?

I've reached the chapter on quantum geometry and I'm understanding about 1 word in 3 at the moment. Unfortunately, those words are all articles and prepositions. Head spinning stuff.

There's an awful lot of, well, rape in this book. What does it say about ancient Greek culture that their gods seemed incapable of relating to mortal women other than by violence? Or that culture's European descendants?

Hmm. Why do so many translators seem to flag a little at Paradise, I wonder? Though (I skipped ahead) there's definitely a bit of a rally for the last canto.

"The function and task of a writer are those of a translator."

Finally assaulting the summit!

Of the many things Proust has to teach us, one of the more important is that of not lying to ourselves, despite our astounding capacity for the exact same thing.

This, on the other hand, is reducing me to jelly.

Well. I didn't see *that* coming.

Newcomers to Dante, don't start here!

Approaching the sixth ledge of Purgatory. I'd say this is a (very) good reading text but loses a little in comparison with the poetic energy of the Hollanders. Perhaps I'll tackle the Esolen next.

Not really something to be shared in a hundred characters. But, oh, poor Charlus! His doom is upon him and from a source that would have been unthinkable a couple of thousand pages ago...

And now I'm two thirds through and this book is making me very sad. Is there any way in which families don't cause us horror and distress despite our best intentions as children or parents?

Oh! Huh?!? Did I miss something?