Bertrand > Recent Status Updates

At that time I somehow had a presentiment, which I so often felt later on, that we didn't have the right to open a book if we weren't committed to reading all of them. With every line you broke off a piece of the world. Before books the world was unharmed and perhaps in time it would be whole again.

'Whenever I think back to my home, where there's no one left now, I can see that in times gone by things must have been different. In those days people knew (or suspected) that they had death inside them like the stone inside a fruit. Children had a small one in them and grown-ups a big one. Women had it in their womb and men in their chest. They had it and it gave them a particular dignity and quiet pride.'

While it is appropriate to use the word mysticism when speaking of"joy before death" and its practice, this implies no more than an affective resemblance between this practice and those of the religions of Asia or Europe. There is no reason to link any presuppositions concerning an alleged deeper reality with a joy that has no object other than immediate life.

This is really not all that good, or is it? I knew I should have stayed away from the "Title (Serie's name, #volume number)" kinda model. Or went all the way, and picked "Taken by the Billionaire Werewolf (Kingwood Pack #1)" instead.

Oh - my - god...

I am only one essay in the book and I can already tell it is going to be excellent. If I was to teach Avantgarde 101, I reckon this "Hidden Dialectic" would be required reading for the first lesson!

'Can I speak with you, Fanny, for a few minutes? ' said he.
'Yes, certainly.'
'I want to consult. I want your opinion.'
'My opinion!' she cried, shrinking from such a compliment, highly as it gratified her.

I love the smell of jargon in the morning!

An exhilarating counter-point to d'Annunzio and his treacly sirup of words! Short, brutish and nasty sentences, full of heart-felt rancour, of self-conscious mediocrity, of insecurities sublimated into criminal pulsions!

I believe the name is "aspirational fiction".

Not yet a quarter through, but I can already tell that (despite the fugly cover art) this is one exceptional book...

"Roses are red,
Violet are blue,
Sugar is Sweet
And so are you"
Jean Baptiste Poncet, 1699

Goodies are good, Baddies are bad, priests are seniles, nobles are haughty, arabs greedy but the third estate is full of selfmade geniuses whose oppression has fostered the greatest gifts! Gawd this is so bad it hurts. Its only redeeming purpose is to try my willpower.