David Kowalski > Recent Status Updates

“I like the monologue even more than the duet, when it is good. It’s like watching a man write a book expressly for you: he writes it, reads it aloud, acts it, revises it, savours it, enjoys it, enjoys your enjoyment of it, and then tears it up and throws it to the winds.”

“Once more we knew ourselves in the real active world, where the air seems like a lively wine dissolving the pearl of the old order I hope, dear reader, you like the metaphor.”
I do David Herbert Lawrence. And I like you…

"Why," say I, lapsing into the Italian rhetorical manner, "why do you keep an inn? Why do you write the word Ristorante so large, when you have nothing to offer people, and don't intend to have anything. Why do you have the impudence to take in travellers? What does it mean, that this is an inn? What, say, what does it mean? Say then what does it mean? What does it mean, your Ristorante Risveglio, written so large?"

First impressions. Reading Lawrence setting out for Sardinia as I am about to…
Lawrence paints with words. Even the things he does not like are beautifully rendered. I’m ready to dislike him as he disliked Joyce. The enemy of my friend is my enemy.
But…

“There were times when he would stop and look off at the mountains and then down at himself and any tool he happened to have in his hands as if in wry amusement at what he was doing. You had no impression that he thought himself too good for the work or did not like it. He was just different. He was shaped in some firm forging of past circumstance for other things.”

Great scholarship. A superb summary if earlier work and presentation on later 20th century views. Loved Mack and Kott’s analysis.

Ok. I don’t often do this but I have to say I’m loving this. Page after page is a revelation, either in terms of learning an element of style or technique that Shakespeare employs, or something that impacts on my own writing.
I plan to read all the prefaces now. And I suggest that if you want to know about Hamlet, or indeed Shakespeare, this is essential reading.

Muddling along with these. It's been a year which gives you some idea about how much nachas it gives me...

How's the book you ask? It's refreshingly fun so far. I'm looking forward to reviewing this pleasant alternative (thus far) to black and white heroes, grungy coprophagic characters and long drawn out plots and digressions.

In case you're wondering I am going slowly through this, though I cannot say I'm savouring it. I don't read enough short fiction to be able to criticise this in any meaningful way except to say that one day I will finish this and while it is a labour, there isn't too much love in it.

I am pretty disappointed with this so far. Almost angry. The title is a misnomer. Nothing is bring examined here. It's sketchy, thin... Echoing Socrates' statement that the unexamined life is not worth living I'm not seeing any of this so far. Observation? Yes. Examination? Hardly. Collaborative? Grosz's presence in the narrative so far is mostly ghost like. I'll get back to you shortly...

I'm reading the Lattimore translation rather than Fagles and make that point because Lattimore rocks!

Where I'm at in this book is irrelevant. It's a pilgrimage of poems I will always return to.

Having commenced this as the most amazing audio book I am reading this with the greatest of pleasures. By definition, one of my favourite books.

Just completed theWife of Bath and learned what was needed to please a woman. And, found the most amazing woman on the planet to please.

Without a doubt this is essential reading for anyone who had ever thought about thinking so I guess that means you. This is critically important stuff.

Awesome novel. Confident, witty, nasty... Not at all what I expected as it had been described to me as science fiction, which it ain't. The author writes with bravado and style. I'm jealous. :)

Knights tale completed and it only took 4 weeks!!!!!