quotes

Literary Zen XI

by
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer*

There is some wisdom in taking a gloomy view, in looking upon the world as a kind of Hell, and in confining one’s efforts to securing a little room that shall not be exposed to the fire.

*Perhaps a better caption would be, Willem Defoe as Arthur Schopenhauer, which is why I shan’t give up my day job.

Oh yeah, my books will be free from 00:01 (PDST) tonight until 23:59 PDST) Friday.

✌️

Straight On Through*

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You just have to go on when it is worst and most helpless -there is only one thing to do with a novel [or anything important**] and that is go straight on through to the end of the damn thing.

Ernest Hemingway to F. Scott Fitzgerald in a 1929 letter from France, courtesy the New York Times archive
Hemingway and Fitzgerald in Paris, 1925, courtesy Brainpickings (lord only knows where she got it from)

#alonetogetherwiththelostgeneration

*Even though it says Straight On Through and not Break On Through, I wonder how many first thought of the Doors…

**IMO

Two Learnings from My Recent Rememborizing Efforts: One cool; One cautionary

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As I discussed in my last post, I’ve embarked on an effort to memorize stuff that interests me. I’m finding that the more I memorize stuff, the easier is to memorize and retain new stuff.

So as I just finished up memorizing the poem Invictus, I decided to go large and take on the grandest, and perhaps greatest, of all letters penned on behalf of these United States, The Declaration of Independence.

Yeah, maybe I am getting a little cocky/in over my head taking on such a significant body of work — significant as in packed with meaning, and, especially, significant as in packed with a lot of words. One-thousand, four-hundred and fifty-eight of them to be exact.

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Now that I’ve the Time

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A couple days ago, I wrote a painfully long post called The Irrepressible Nature of Irony.

I mean, dude*, it is a massive monster of a missive.

I mean, wow.

Anyway, as a mea culpa, of sorts, for torturing you with such interminablely tedious twaddle, I left a footnote that reads:

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Don’t be a Doormat

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I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat. ― Rebecca West

#notetoself
#timesup

While Hacking at a Log

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I wonder…

What is more important to most readers of literature…

Just the words as they are written?

Or the why the words were written – the author’s motivation?

Or the how the words were written – the author’s background?

When reading a thesis that may influence one’s medical or legal decisions, knowing that the author has the requisite knowledge and training to write with such influencing authority – the why and how of the words – probably should be important.

However, when it comes to literature – does it really matter what schools the author attended, or how well-read an author is?

Or would most readers regard a work of literature by a less-than educated or less-than well-read author similar to someone hacking in mad rage at a log with an ax and when she comes to her senses she discovers that she had, in her blind passion, formed a beautiful wooden sculpture*?

Would she have created art?

Should she then be considered an artist?

I wonder…

 

*This is far from an original thought of mine but unfortunately I cannot find the original quote to give proper credit. If you know, please comment.