Tuesday, March 20, 2007

A Many Stupid Thing.

"Sometime a horse i'll be, sometime a hound.
A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire."
- A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Discovering Shakespeare through a book set against the backdrop of post-WWII Europe. The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje. Poetry in prose.

There are books that you read and know you are in the presence of greatness. There are books you read and wonder why such wonderful thoughts never occurred to you. There are books you read and know you've finished a masterpiece. But you don't love them.

Then, there are books you read and know you will love them forever, even though they may not be Gibran or Tolstoy. They may be nothing, but you know you can still pick them up when you're eighty, and they'll be your friends still.

This entry is my tribute to three of my best friends.
To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee.
The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje.
The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

Well, not a tribute. I'm just going to type out some of my favourite parts of the books, and send them out into the what I call "The Wasteland" - the great internet void created by a million unread blogs - and hope that someone will read this, and smile. It is very important that they smile.

"There are betrayals in war that are childlike compared with our human betrayals during peace. The new lover enters the habits of the other. Things are smashed, revealed in a new light. This is done with nervous or tender sentences, although the heart is an organ of fire."
- The English Patient.

"Grown-ups love figures. When you talk to them about a new friend, they never ask questions about essential matters. They never say to you: 'What does his voice sound like? What games does he prefer? Does he collect butterflies?' They ask you: 'How old is he? How many brothers does he have? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father earn?' It is only then that they feel they know him."
- The Little Prince.

"Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing."
-To Kill A Mockingbird.

I'm afraid I'm a Book Person, but hopefully I'm a little bit of a Music Person and an Art Person and a Movie Person too. But first I'm a Book Person. There is beauty in words, just as there is beauty in music, and nature, and art.

The best religion is the worship of beauty. I am a follower.

I love all beauteous things.

3 kindred spirits have swallowed my rambling:

Metamorphosis, psychology and She said...

hey, this thing is sooooooo good that i want to quote your lines for all the shit i write about books.....

new age scheherazade said...

I smiled.

raghu said...

i love writing more than reading..there is pleasure in creating.. i feel jealous to read lines such as those.. very jealous that i dint create them.. thats all.. i love writing.