Bluestalking

Photo of the Day

 

Easing back into the blogosphere with the posting of a picture I took today, while trudging around a nearby fen. Will resume communication shortly.

In the blink of an eye

Life has changed, just like that. In predictably unpredictable fashion illness has hit our family swiftly and cruelly.

For the foreseeable future posting will be sparse. It may be good therapy for me to write when I can, at least once a week to say "this is what I'm reading." But beyond that will be difficult. For now, what I need is the simple and mindless, when I'm not handling the essentials. Reading, playing a pop the bubble app, watching stupid TV and the occasional movie are all I can manage.

And no, I'm not the one who's ill so please don't worry about that, as I know some would.

Thank you for your patience.

Happy 200th, Charles Dickens!

 Happiest of happy birthdays, Charles Dickens!

You've brought so much pleasure to so many souls since the day you first picked up a pen. And how much joy you've yet to bring to future generations. At least let's hope you'll always have readers, since your prose could hardly be reduced to 140 character Tweets. Or they could but it would take a generation getting through one novel. One sentence could take multiple Tweets.

 

"I have heard it broached that orders should be given in great new ships by electric telegraph.  I admire machinery as much as any man, and am as thankful to it as any man can be for what it does for us.  But, it will never be a substitute for the face of a man, with his soul in it, encouraging another man to be brave and true.  Never try it for that.  It will break down like a straw."

- Charles Dickens, “The Wreck of the Golden Mary”

 

Remarkable how prescient this quote is. Imagine what he'd say about us now. Dickens' works were first published serially, at a time people were resigned to waiting for things. The quickest method of communication was via the aforementioned telegraph but everyday events were transmitted by letter. Handwritten letter, I mean.

 

 

 

If you lived in a city it was possible to have a short postal dialogue in the space of a day.  How their heads would whirl seeing us communicate around the world via a few keystrokes, sharing not just words but photos, videos, sound bytes... It would be as incredible to them as looking back a generation makes people around my age feel. Mine is the last generation capable of remembering a time before technology ruled, the last with a "writer's bump" on our right middle fingers from holding a pencil.

Think about that for a minute!

The world's changed so much in the 200 years since Charles Dickens was born and lived. By the time he's 400, which writers alive today will be as celebrated at their bicentennial? Hard to say, considering how few authors' birthdays we mark now. What does this say about us, about literature and its importance?

I think I'll leave that question hanging. I'm not sure I want the answer.

In the meantime, Happy Birthday, Charles Dickens.

And thank you.

 

 

 

For more information about Dickens, see:

Prince Charles Leads Dickens 200th Celebrations

Simon Callow on Dickens' London:

 

 

Charles Dickens Museum

Dickens' Birthplace Museum

Charles Dickens Timeline

Charles Dickens' Works, Etexts

And so, so much more.

 

 

World Book Night! It's official...

 

I've been chosen as a World Book Night giver!

There is still room, so if you'd like to participate but haven't signed up do not fear. Just head over to the site by midnight, EST on February 6 and fill out the registration form/application. They're in need of more good people to spread the love of reading by handing out free books (provided by them, you only have to pick them up!) wherever people congregate.

To tell you the truth, I don't remember which title I chose (!) but I'm fairly confident it was Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. But I had to list three, in priority order, so it's anyone's guess which I'll wind up with.

So, book lovers! Put your generosity where your heart is. Give, give, give!

 

Happy Birthday, James Joyce!

 

Today Joyce would have been 130. The prose that's thrilled an elite few, but baffles most, could - and surely would - today be given a pass as the senile ramblings of an ancient man:

 

"- I am the resurrection and the life. That touches a man's in most heart.
- It does, Mr Bloom said.
Your heart perhaps but what price the fellow in the six feet by two with his toes to the daisies? No touching that. Seat of the affections. Broken heart. A pump after all, pumping thousands of gallons of blood every day. One fine day it gets bunged up: and there you are. Lots of them lying around here: lungs, hearts, livers. Old rusty pumps: damn the thing else. The resurrection and the life. Once you are dead you are dead. That last day idea. Knocking them all up out of their graves. Come forth, Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job. Get up! Last day! Then every fellow mousing around for his liver and his lights and the rest of his traps. Find damn all of himself that morning."

- Ulysses

 

 

Who was this man and why is so much fuss still made about his writing? Especially if you aren't familiar with Homer, if the references go right past you and it takes reading a concordance longer than the primary work to have a prayer of understanding anything.

Few of us now receive a classical education, at least here in the U.S. I can't speak for other countries. A few generations younger than Joyce, I never had to read Homer, though I earned a B.A. in English literature without it. My education started with Beowulf, continuing forward not far past the Victorians but if I had to read short passages of Homer I've wiped it from my memory.

So, does obscurity make the genius? And what's his significance outside the university if it takes a Doctorate to make heads or tails of his work? One Dubliner friend of mine once told me, "Joyce was a fraud."  I don't recall that she ever elaborated but I know she's not the only one to believe such.

But there is help and I know I've mentioned this before but it being Joyce's birthday a repeat couldn't hurt. Frank Delaney, an Irish writer,  has been going line by line through Ulysses  , since June 14, 2010, recording podcasts to help those of us without benefit of the aforesaid classical education read and appreciate Joyce's most famous work.

And, by the way, he forecasts the whole project will take 25 years.

Interesting the man NPR deemed "The most eloquent man in the world" is translating the most obscure. Ironic, actually, while also most generous of heart.

 

 

 

Delaney is an Irish novelist, broadcaster, BBC host and Booker Prize judge. I'm a bit impressed and hugely humbled by a man of such broad talent and dedication to advancing the spirit of James Joyce to countless others he'll never meet. I suppose his thanks lies in personal satisfaction, knowing what he's doing is appreciated from the feedback of a very few. It's also a damned good exercise for his own brain. Not a slouch, this one.

So, happy birthday to James Joyce. I'll begin my personal wrangle with you on Bloomsday this year, relying on the grace of Frank Delaney to nudge me along, my question being will it take 25 years to read if it's taking Delaney 25 years to produce the guidance?

I feel faint.

Ah, but when I'm done won't I lord it over the rest of the world. Frank Delaney I am not.

 

 

"I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality"

- James Joyce, the cheeky monkey

 

 

Amazing new invention: the BOOK!