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:: Kafka, Jews and teeth
11 November 2009 10:47 pmOK, Kafka was a Jew, so technically the first two terms are redundant. But I don't much care at this point. I've fallen rather far behind in getting down my thoughts about what I've read due to various real life interferences (conference travel, work, dog illness [it's intestinal, don't ask me to go there], and the all-important BETA-ING of some brilliant pieces which have yet to be posted but will rock the world of fanfic, see if they don't).
Anyway. Here goes my initial attemp at trying to catch up, starting with a quote from Kafka. I ran across this somewhere in my past, because I remember bits of it, but encountered it again recently and it stuck with me:
An ice-axe to break the sea frozen inside us. F**king awesome. Can any of those perpetual NYT best-seller-list hack-denizens do that? I doubt it. Stephen King maybe, erratically. Danielle Steele or James Patterson: I highly doubt it. We read those to numb ourselves, to comfort ourselves, or to distract ourselves, not to challenge us or awaken us. They're pompoms, not ice axes.
I love the ice axes.
OK, I haven't actually been reading Kafka (he's best in the original Klingon, by the way). The quote was the lead-in to Chaim Potok's The Promise, which I did read and which I enjoyed very much (not an ice axe but perhaps an ice pick?). The central story of Reuven and Danny -- their friendship, their relationships with Rachel and her cousin Michael -- is ( folded up neatly in the interests of space )
On a completely different note, I foresee Epic Phail with NaNoWriMo. I've done zip, zilch, bupkus, nada, niente, or as a long-time friend would put it, "King Zippy Nada." Pfffft. Oh, and I chomped down on a handful of peanuts when I got home from work and a back tooth cracked in half and fell out.
Not so good there.
I think I'll have another glass of wine and go to bed.
Anyway. Here goes my initial attemp at trying to catch up, starting with a quote from Kafka. I ran across this somewhere in my past, because I remember bits of it, but encountered it again recently and it stuck with me:
If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read it? Good God, we would also be happy if we had no books [ok, I take issue with him that, but on we go...], and such books as make us happy we could, if need be, write ourselves. But what we must have are the books which come upon us like ill fortune, and distress us deeply, like the death of one we love better than ourselves, like suicide. A book must be an ice-axe to break the sea frozen inside us.
An ice-axe to break the sea frozen inside us. F**king awesome. Can any of those perpetual NYT best-seller-list hack-denizens do that? I doubt it. Stephen King maybe, erratically. Danielle Steele or James Patterson: I highly doubt it. We read those to numb ourselves, to comfort ourselves, or to distract ourselves, not to challenge us or awaken us. They're pompoms, not ice axes.
I love the ice axes.
OK, I haven't actually been reading Kafka (he's best in the original Klingon, by the way). The quote was the lead-in to Chaim Potok's The Promise, which I did read and which I enjoyed very much (not an ice axe but perhaps an ice pick?). The central story of Reuven and Danny -- their friendship, their relationships with Rachel and her cousin Michael -- is ( folded up neatly in the interests of space )
On a completely different note, I foresee Epic Phail with NaNoWriMo. I've done zip, zilch, bupkus, nada, niente, or as a long-time friend would put it, "King Zippy Nada." Pfffft. Oh, and I chomped down on a handful of peanuts when I got home from work and a back tooth cracked in half and fell out.
Not so good there.
I think I'll have another glass of wine and go to bed.
