printed&bound

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman - Published 1855

[Corbis]

Switch Bitch by Roald Dahl

Publisher: Michael Joseph - UK

Date: 1974

There has been a lot of talk this year about Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are being made into a movie.  I loved that book growing up, but as soon as my teacher read The BFG to my second grade class, I became a Roald Dahl worshipper.  Lucky for me he has a dirty little Welsh mind and published plenty of big boy and girl stories for us to enjoy.  All of the tales in this book revolve around sex.  We are also introduced to the amazing Uncle Oswald, a sex-hungry bachelor who thinks 8 hours with a woman is just enough, any more and things would just get stale.  You realize how much he must have been holding back when writing his childrens story’s after you’ve read this book.  There are parts in here you could call erotica, but that wouldn’t really cover the funny and sinister tone of the book.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s desk on which he wrote The Little Prince.

[Corbis]

“I suppose it is out of laziness that the world is the same day after day. Today it seemed to want to change. And then anything, anything could happen.”

— Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

[Corbis]

Roald Dahl with his wife Patricia, 1965.

[Life]

Switch Bitch by Roald Dahl

Currently reading. I love this guy and his smutty ways.  Thank you Roald.

Photo via Coverbrowser

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson

Publisher: Sherman, French, & Co. - New York

Date: 1912

This is a beautiful book and one I should have read a long time ago. There are some amazing passages in here dealing with race, but the most touching passage to me was near the start of the book where the boy sits on the couch with his mother:

“Always on such evenings, when the music was over, my mother would sit with me in her arms often for a very long time.  She would hold me close, softly crooning some old melody without words, all the while gently stroking her face against my head; many and many a night I thus fell asleep.  I can see her now, her great dark eyes looking into the fire, to where?  No one knew but she.  The memory of that picture has more than once kept me from straying too far from the place of purity and safety in which her arms held me.”

A must read.

thebloomsburytwo:

Book Review

The Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

As Jon touched on in his review earlier this is my second attempt at this novel. The first time didn’t go so well. I didn’t know what I was getting into, I didn’t have my head on straight.

I’m really not sure what possessed Jon and I to pick this book for our little reading group. We both respect and love Cormac, but I don’t believe either one of us were prepared for this piece of work.

This book is tough to describe. In simple terms we start the novel following “the kid” a down on his luck young guy who falls in line with a group of scalp hunters.  This group may be the worst people on the planet at that time. They kill, destroy, wreck everything they come across. Glanton is their leader but the story is about the Judge.

I talked to Jon on the phone last night. I said “You know who the Judge reminds me of, Marlon Brando from Apocalypse Now.” I can’t help but wonder if the Judge may be the worst character ever written about in modern literature. He never goes away, he’s always there, haunting the reader like a shadow. It’s amazing the Judge can be any worse then the rest of the characters in this book. He’s not only worse, he’s worse by a long shot. I hated the Judge, I hated Glanton, I disliked the Kid.

There is not a single redeemable thing about anyone in this book. Yet you read on. You can’t help yourself. Cormac knows his nature, he knows that natural world we live in like no other. He can describe a rock down to its last crack. At times daunting it provides a prose that tick tick ticks along. You have to have your reading shoes on for this one. You can’t half ass it.

In closing all I can say if you decide to read this novel be in the right head space. If you’re feeling down and blue, maybe skip it until you’re feeling sure of yourself. It will come at you hard and tough. There’s something in it that I can’t describe. Maybe if you read it you can tell me what that something is.

Casey

Like usual, said it better than I could pal.  Nice one.

James Weldon Johnson’s scrapbook.

[Beinecke]

James Weldon Johnson at his desk.

[Beinecke]

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson

I made a post back in August about buying this book and reading it as soon as possible.  I did, and I am.

[Beinecke]

The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima

This book takes place on a tiny island off Japan centering on the relationship of Shinji, a poor young fisherman just out of high school, and Hatsue, the young daughter of a successful business man.  The island population is small and the people know everyone else’s business.  Gossip ensues.

It is a wonderful story of young love that really captures what those first moments are like when you find yourself face to face with your own emotions on a uncontrollable level - lust, infatuation, desire, love, betrayal.  That moment when Shinji and Hatsue realize their feelings for each other, neither really knows what to do next.  How could they?  I remember that trepidation, that feeling of being completely vulnerable, self-conscious, confused, yet desirous, all at once.  And the amazing feeling when you know that the affection you have for that person is returned, by look, by word, by touch.  Mishima writes a beautiful story here and though I am not a sucker for love stories, this one felt true to the real, awkward, heart-numbing first moments in the experience of falling in love. 

Yukio Mishima

[Corbis]

Yukio Mishima

[Corbis]

The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima

First American Edition - Charles E. Tuttle Company, Tokyo - 1956.