BIBLIOGRIND
Adventures in Writing, Reading & Book Culture
May 2, 2013 at 8:14 pm · Filed under A Commonplace Book, THE LETTERS OF MARK BEYER :: reading & writing & book culture
“Turns of speech,” said he, “conceal mediocre affections: as if the fullness of the soul might not sometimes overflow in the emptiest of metaphors, since no one, ever, can give the exact measurements of his needs, nor of his conceptions, nor of his sufferings, and the human word is like an outworn, battered timbal upon which we beat out melodies fit for making bears dance when we are trying to move the stars to pity.” – Nick Tosches, “In the Hand of Dante”
A thoroughly strange book, and highly unusual (though not unique) way of telling the story: different voices using divergent methods to bring off auras, effects, and manipulation.
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What Beauty is my newest novel, a story of art, obsession and ego. Read an excerpt here. It’s available as an ebook, too.
The Village Wit (2010) is a humorous and sometimes dark odyssey through village life, love’s fall, sexual politics, and that place where memory and modern love intersect. Read an excerpt here. This book is also available as an ebook.
January 18, 2013 at 10:16 pm · Filed under A Commonplace Book
I’ve had this book on my shelf for over a year, where it found itself buried under other books. It was suggested that I read Atwood, as it had been a while since the last. Now I wonder why it’s been so long:
january 18, 2013
“Then it was time for the keepers, and our walk out through the gate, Ah Grace, out for your promenade with your two beaus, ain’t you the lucky one. Oh no, we’re the lucky ones, we’re the lucky boys ourselves, with such a morsel on our arms, says the one. What do you say Grace, says the other, let’s just nip up a side alley, into a back stable, down on the hay, it won’t take long if you lie still, and quicker yet if you wriggle about. Or why lie down at all, says the one, back her up against the wall and heave-ho and hoist the petticoats, it’s a quick jump standing up, as long as your knees don’t give out on you; come Grace, just give us the word and we’re your lads, one as good as the other and why settle for one when there’s two standing ready? Standing ready all the time, here, give us a hand and you can test the truth of it. Nor we won’t charge you a penny neither, says the other, what’s a good time between old friends?”
– Margaret Atwood, “Alias Grace”
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What Beauty is my newest novel, a story of art, obsession and ego. Read an excerpt here. It’s available as an ebook, too.
The Village Wit (2010) is a humorous and sometimes dark odyssey through village life, love’s fall, sexual politics, and that place where memory and modern love intersect. Read an excerpt here. This book is also available as an ebook.
June 13, 2012 at 9:54 pm · Filed under A Commonplace Book
I own a copy of “The Book of Great Conversations” (ed. Louis Biancolli), a great collection of famous “recorded” conversations from history. Ever wonder what Casanova said to Voltaire when they met? Here’s one of their conversations (“argue for the necessity of superstition among the masses”). Did you know Wagner and Rossini exchanged thoughts on “music of the future”? And for you fantasists, how about H.G. Wells sitting down with “Uncle Joe” Stalin (“I am more to the left than you, Mr Stalin.”)?
This volume, I’m sure, can be scrounged from one of the used-book or antiquarian sites, and you won’t be disappointed. One conversation that struck me as particularly poignant, from both the standpoint of the participants and the subject, was Michelangelo’s conversation with his friend, Donato, a man of letters of some quality, and also a Florentine (but now in exile in Rome). They would often meet on the street while on an afternoon walk. On this particular day, in 1546, they began to talk about Dante’s “Inferno” and the argument (objected to by Donato) “was Dante right to consign Brutus and Cassius to Hell for Murdering Julius Caesar?” Michelangelo took the positive standpoint, that the murderers deserved Hell, and he explains why ….
may 20, 2006
“Michelangelo: How do you know Dante did not feel that Brutus and Cassius did wrong in killing Caesar? Don’t you know how much ruin and misery came into the world as a result of his death? Don’t you see what a calamitous succession of emperors followed him? Would it not have been better if he had lived and carried out his ideas?
Donato: The one idea he had was to be called ‘King.’
Michelangelo: I grant you that. But wasn’t that a lesser evil than what followed? How do you know that Caesar would not in time have tired of ruling and like Sulla restored freedom to the country and reconstituted the Republic? Now, if by continuing to live, he had done that, would not Brutus and Cassius have committed a great wrong in killing him? It is an act of great presumption to set out to kill the head of a state, whether he be just or unjust, for no one knows for certain what good can come of his death, and there is always the hope that some good can come of his remaining alive. For that reason I am considerably annoyed by people who believe that there can be no good unless it begins with some act of evil—that is, with a few deaths. They don’t understand that times change, that unforeseen developments may arise, and that men get tired and change their minds. Out of all that it often happens— without anybody ardently hoping and striving and risking his life for it—that the very good will come about which many have thought desirable….”
– “Was Dante Right to Consign Brutus and Cassius to Hell for Murdering Julius Caesar?”, The Book of Great Conversations, ed. Louis Biancolli
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What Beauty is my newest novel, a story of art, obsession and ego. Read an excerpt here. It’s available as an ebook, too.
The Village Wit (2010) is a humorous and sometimes dark odyssey through village life, love’s fall, sexual politics, and that place where memory and modern love intersect. Read an excerpt here. This book is also available as an ebook.
