miniZibaldone

The Plague by Albert Camus 'In short, this epidemic has done him proud. Of a lonely man who hated loneliness it has made an accomplice. Yes, 'accomplice' is the word that fits, and doesn't he relish his complicity! He is happily at one with all around him, with their superstitions, their groundless panics, the susceptibilities of people whose nerves are always on the stretch; with their fixed idea of talking the least possible about plague and nevertheless talking of it all the time; with their abject terror at the slightest headache, now they know headache to be an early symptom of the disease; and, lastly, with their frayed, irritable sensibility that takes offense at trifling oversights and brings tears to their eyes over the loss of a trouser-button.' [. . .]  And indeed it could be said that once the faintest stirring of hope became possible, the dominion of the plague was ended.  It must, however, be admitted that our fellow citizens' reactions during that...

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis To Lucy Barfield My Dear Lucy, I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand, a word you say, but I shall still be your affectionate Godfather, C. S. Lewis

From JSTOR Daily

You’ve said that at both the University of Sydney and the University of Cambridge, you were “a bad student” who consistently read off-course. To the ears of my  contemporaries, reading off-course is the sort of procrastination that qualifies being a good student. Now, with the internet, we have so many distractions that is  almost impossible to stay focused on any one thing at a time, and work is scarcely one of them. Do you worry about the future of literature in this virtual  environment? Literature will win through the way it always has, by being too valuable to be ignored. All you have to do is write something as good as Pride and Prejudice . A  cinch. Finally, do you have any advice for young writers? When the young writers ask me for advice, I give them the same advice as I give my niece: stop right now if you can.

from the Guardian Brexit, pursued by a bear: Boris Johnson shelves his Shakespeare biography Originally scheduled for an October release, Johnson’s Shakespeare: The Riddle of Genius has been put on ice due to its author’s new commitments Zounds! S’blood! BoJo’s Bard biog shuffles off this mortal coil! On Monday it was announced that Boris Johnson’s widely anticipated biography of Shakespeare is on ice, indefinitely. Originally scheduled for release this October – rather late for the 400th anniversary of the playwright’s death back in April – Shakespeare: The Riddle of Genius “will not be published for the foreseeable future”, says its publisher, Hodder & Stoughton. Regrettably for those inclined to schadenfreude, they declined to confirm reports that Johnson will be forced to pay back his advance. Et tu, Boris, et cetera. Among professional Shakespeareans – think the conspirators in Julius Caesar, only with sharper daggers – there has been a mixture of glee and remorse. ...

Child of My Heart Alice McDermott     After This Alice McDermott  A Man by Oriana Fallaci Interview with History Oriana Fallaci  The Rage and the Pride Oriana Fallaci  Memories of a Catholic Girlhood Mary McCarthy   The Company She Keeps by Mary McCarthy  

Eliade: That same year I also published an almost Joycean novel, called The Light That Failed. That same title as one of Kipling's books. Was that intentional? Eliade: Yes, because of a certain similarity between the two central characters. I've tried to reread the book several times since — impossible, I can't understand a word of it! I had been very impressed by an excerpt from Finnegans Wake , published under the title "Anna Livia Plurabelle," and I employed the stream-of-consciousness technique of Ulysses — for the first time in Romania, I believe. It was wholly unsuccessful. Even the critics didn't know what to make of it. It was totally unreadable. This influence Joyce had on you, and the taste for the word as such that it presupposes, does surprise me, rather. It seems to me that up until then you had been more inclined to treat language as simply a means to an end. Were you writing poetry at this time? In a sense yes, But I ought to ...

Piccadilly Jim by P. G. Wodehouse At this moment, apparently from some upper region, there burst forth an uproar so sudden and overwhelming that it might well have been taken for a premature testing of a large sample of Partridgite; until a moment later it began to resemble more nearly the shrieks of some partially destroyed victim of that death-dealing invention. It was a bellow of anguish, and it poured through the house in a cascade of sound, advertising to all beneath the roof the twin facts that some person unknown was suffering and that whoever the sufferer might be he had excellent lungs. The effect on the gathering in the drawing-room was immediate and impressive. Conversation ceased as if it had been turned off with a tap. Twelve separate and distinct discussions on twelve highly intellectual topics died instantaneously. It was as if the last trump had sounded. Futurist painters stared pallidly at vers libre poets, speech smitten from their lips; and stage performers...

From Lapham's Quarterly

A Season in the West Piers Paul Read    Desert by J. M. G. Le Clezio   Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton   The Misogynist by Pier Pauls Read   Lord Peter by Dorothy Sayers   Clouds of Witness by Dorothy Sayers  Lions at the Lamb House by Edwin Yoder   A Room with a View by E. M. Forster  A Room With A View and Howard's End by E. M. Forster Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi  The Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Franz Kafka  The Trial by Franz Kafka  The Mirage by Naguib Mahfouz In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner   Monsieur Ibrahim and Roses of Koran by Eric-Emmanuel Schmit

The Council and Reunion Hans Kung Who's Who in Shakespeare Robin May Memories of a Catholic Girlhood Mary McCarthy   Child of My Heart Alice McDermott     Enter Isabel: The Herman Melville Correspondence of Clare Spark and Paul Metcalf Paul Metcalf   T. S. Eliot Poet A. D. Moody  

In the library: http://bookslibrarycebu.blogspot.com/2016/01/books-sorted-byon-library-CS-Lewis.html From Communio journal             [full text]

From The Point magazine

From  https://blog.longreads.com     [Full text]

No Souvenirs: Journal 1957-1969 Mircea Eliade Autbiography I Mircea Eliade Autbiography II Mircea Eliade Faith Hope Love by Josef Pieper Leisure the Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper  Bengal Nights by Mircea Eliade The Sacred and the Profane by Mircea Eliade   A History of Religious Ideas 1 Mircea Eliade A History of Religious Ideas 2 Mircea Eliade A History of Religious Ideas 3 Mircea Eliade The Myth of the Eternal Return Mircea Eliade Ordeal by Labyrinth Mircea Eliade Myth and Reality Mircea Eliade Imagination and Meaning Mircea Eliade