dimanche 29 janvier 2012

Bibliophile


…these potatoes have as much the flavour of a Moor Park apricot as the fruit from that tree. It is an insipid fruit at the best. - Jane Austen, Mansfield Park
He needed no further reason to dislike Cleopatra: intelligent women who had better libraries than he did offended him on three counts.—Stacy Schiff, Cleopatra: A LifeShe jerked away from me like a startled fawn might, if I had a startled fawn and it jerked away from me. -Raymond Chandler
Breakfast in bed this morning was a little decadent, but starting off on a happy note makes the rest of the day go that much smoother. And I love Zadie Smith’s book reviews for Harper’s.
*Images by Juliette Tang

Cannot believe I only stumbled upon Juliette Tang's most amazing collection of book photography today! I am in love with her juxtaposition of images and quotes, and how she illuminates the aesthetic front of a shared literary obsession.

You can see her tumblr here and flickr here.


vendredi 20 janvier 2012

Janvier est...



Waking up with BBC radio 3 Breakfast at dawn when the black birds sing / Free flow of cups of Bettys Darjeeling tea / Reading more books already than 2011 altogether - got into Milan Kundera and Philip Larkin again / Wearing the Russell & Bromley loafers everywhere / Went to the Rothko in Britain exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery / Dined at the beautiful Terroirs (and need to go back again) / Lost the sheet containing my new year resolution already.

x


Cinematic Writing VII



Mantled in grey, the dusk steals slowly in,
Crossing the dead, dull fields with footsteps cold.
The rain drips drearily; night's fingers spin
A web of drifting mist o'er wood and wold,
As quiet as death. The sky is silent too,
Hard as granite and as fixed as fate.
The pale pond stands; ringed round with rushes few
But for the coming of the winter night
Of deep December; blowing o'er the graves
Of faded summers, swift the wind in flight
Ripples its silent face with lapping waves.
The rain falls still: bowing, the woods bemoan;
Dark night creeps in, and leaves the world alone.

- Philip Larkin, Winter Nocturne


dimanche 8 janvier 2012

Cinematic Writing VI



"Do you still play as beautifully as you used to?"

"I still enjoy it."

"Please play, Elizabeth."

Elizabeth arose immediately. Her readiness to perform when asked had always been one of her amiabilities; she never hung back, apologized. Now as she approached the piano there was the added readiness of relief.

She began with a Bach prelude and fugue. The prelude was as gaily iridescent as a prism in a morning room. The first voice of the fugue, an announcement pure and solitary, was repeated intermingling with a second voice, and again repeated within an elaborated frame, the multiple music, horizontal and serene, flowed with unhurried majesty. The principal melody was woven with two other voices, embellished with countless ingenuities -- now dominant, again submerged, it had the sublimity of a single thing that does not fear surrender to the whole. Toward the end, the density of the material gathered for the last enriched insistence on the dominant first motif and with a chorded final statement the fugue ended. Ferris rested his head on the chair back and closed his eyes. In the following silence a clear, high voice came from the room down the hall.

"Daddy, how could Mama and Mr. Ferris--" A door was closed.

The piano began again -- what was this music? Unplaced, familiar, the limpid melody had lain a long while dormant in his heart. Now it spoke to him of another time, another place -- it was the music Elizabeth used to play. The delicate air summoned a wilderness of memory. Ferris was lost in the riot of past longings, conflicts, ambivalent desires. Strange that the music, catalyst for this tumultuous anarchy, was so serene and clear. The singing melody was broken off by the appearance of the maid.

"Miz Bailey, dinner is out on the table now."

Even after Ferris was seated at the table between his host and hostess, the unfinished music still overcast his mood. He was a little drunk.

- Carson McCullers, excerpt from The Sojourner