“A diamond, the locksmith reminds himself, is only a piece of carbon compressed in the bowels of the earth for eons and driven to the surface in a volcanic pipe. Someone facets it, someone polishes it. It can harbor a curse no more than a leaf can, or a mirror, or a life. There is […]
“Dr. Geffard teaches her the names of shells––Lambis lambis, Cypraea moneta, Lophiotoma actua––and lets her feel the spines and apertures and whorls of each in turn. He explains the branches of marine evolution and the sequences of the geologic periods; on her best days, she glimpses the limitless span of millennia behind her: millions of […]
Right so asking a guy like me to critique James Joyces Ulysses is like asking a blind man to critique a silent film Ive neither the know how nor the gumption to properly assess something I have little chance of understanding and would be skeptical of anyone who claimed to comprehend it comprehensively so rather […]
“As we, or mother Dana, weave and unweave our bodies, Stephen said, from day to day, their molecules shuttled to and fro, so does the artist weave and unweave his image. And as the mole on my right breast is where it was when I was born, though all my body has been woven of […]
Neal Stephenson’s Some Remarks is a highly stimulating read from my favorite living author. This collection of essays and short fiction sheds light on Stephenson’s personal background, writing methods, and modes of information synthesis. As always, we are treated to a very special version of the world––one seen through the eyes of an author who […]
“We are the fat. You and I are the fat in the fire. We haven’t got the chance of a snowball in hell.” ––Ulysses, by James Joyce, pg. 132 “Today’s belief in ineluctable certainty is the true innovation-killer of our age. In this environment, the best an audacious manager can do is to develop […]
“Everything speaks in its own way.” ––Ulysses, by James Joyce, pg. 123 “A few years ago I began thinking that the bookish people of the world were becoming a little bit like medieval monks, living austere but intellectually complex lives in voluntary seclusion from a gaudy and action-packed secular world. I’ve written a novel, […]
“Why not endless till the farthest star? Darkly they are there behind this light, darkness shining in the brightness, delta of Cassiopeia, worlds. Me sits there with his augur’s rod of ash, in borrowed sandals, by day beside a livid sea, unbeheld, in violet night walking beneath a reign of uncouth stars. Endless, would it […]
“‘Shakespeare said it best,’ Tamaru said quietly as he gazed at the lumpish, misshapen head. ‘Something along these lines: if we die today, we do not have to die tomorrow, so let us look to the best in each other.’” ––1Q84, by Haruki Murakami, pg. 873 “Choose any person in the world at random, […]
“Who can possibly save all the people of the world? Tengo thought. You could bring all the gods of the world into one place, and still they couldn’t abolish nuclear weapons or eradicate terrorism. They couldn’t end the drought in Africa or bring John Lennon back to life. Far from it––the gods would just break […]