Of Course I've been Reading, D-uh! : Tales from Ovid

Real life leaves muddy footprints across my reading proclivities smudging out the words and meanings. But for moaning, another blog.

So, I haven't read much. I feel properly ignorant, thank you very much. This feeling is corroborated by gormless gaping when people talk anything that is not tumblr cat gifs. Or Loki.

But the last book to be read, and re-read, and loved was this:
Tales from Ovid.

And it is fantabulous.

I wrote an essay on the epic form. A rather stimulating academic exercise. And during my research, chanced upon this. Our Uni library has the dramatised version of this book, which is even better in some ways. But then I got this one.

The stories are extraordinary and then Hughes' poetry. I'm sorry I can't quote any lines at the moment. All my books are boxed as I sit in a friend's house. And my memory has folded its arms and shaken its head in dissent, leaving me with no other option.

But if I come back to it later, will put up quotes.

How highly recommended. As highly as can be. Great stories, great telling, great play of language, great drama! Loan it/ own it already!

Love :)

Celebrate the joy of reading

Stephen Fry tweeted this.

Forgot to thank the people responsible. Two of them. My parents.

Mamma, for telling me incredible stories - Goldilocks, Little Red Riding Hood, and so on. The length of the tales varying according to the time it took your fussy little firstborn to finish her food. Abruptly short at times, dawdling infinitely over the snout of the wolf, the taste of the porridge, at others. For taking me to Dakshineshwar, where I could insist on buying 'Pictorial Stories for Children' published by the Ramakrishna Mission. ! For filling my childhood with hers through mad yarns and unbelievable anecdotes!


Pappa, for never saying 'no' to books! For letting my sister and me have as many as we wanted, no matter how expensive they were, or how far the Sunday book market was; braving the sun and the stress to come and buy us all the omnibuses, the collections and titles we could want. . . For your quiet pride in our reading. Eternal thanks for introducing me to P.G. Wodehouse.
My father does smell of elderberries! (But I dare anyone to call my mother a hamster!)

I love you both!
And I will make it count! Promise :)

Poems on Sri Ramakrishna's Tithi Puja

These two poems from an obscure source. Every once in a while I go looking for them, scouring the internet and want to post them here so I know where they are!

From John Moffitt Jr.'s book 'The Living Seed'. John Moffitt, Jr., known as Swami Atmaghanananda. was a novice and monk from 1932-1963, when he converted to Roman Catholicism. As a Hindu, he contributed poetry to various magazines, including The New Yorker. He corresponded with Salinger from 1953 to 1965, and the two discussed spirituality and its relationship to literature.

SPIRIT OF THE LAND
(Belur Math, India)
Out of unaging earth,
Out of a dark, soft, immemorial
Womb - not the thick paddies only,
Not the slim herons, not the buffalo
And the calm milch cow,
The lifted palm and sturdy deodar;
Not the thatched hut, the naked boy
On the road's edge, the grain winnowed
And piled on the road; not the flowing
Woman, the jolly hawker, the clasped hands
Of brothers joined in artless affection,
The spare, orange-clad monk striding alone;
Not the close bazars, the cozy
Lamps dotting the twilight,
The straining coolie, the round brass pot
Poised on the peasant woman's
Head; not the soiled white saris
Stretched in the sun to dry:
Not all these only, but above and beyond
And through all these, the veiled
Shape, the infinite Mother brooding,
The much affronted, the reviled, the secretly
Serene - long-suffering and forgiving:
She, rising out of this earth,
Above and beyond them all - it is she,
Mysterious and benign,
Whose presence, as you thread the crowded lanes,
Stills you, holds you,
Cheers you like a healing wind.


VIGIL
(Belur Math)
Unfathomable ray,
Which in me, this wide night,
Quietly answers to the tranced quality
Of a light a clean moon throws
Over sheer domes, slow Ganges shallows,
Thick-hung mango leaves: 
Say audibly for me here
In the still presence of this moon-touched air
A hidden word, dark only for simplicity,
To catch my faith's consent
And - past trees, water and white silences -
Gather me to me, 
Unfathomable ray.

---

Fit

Haven't stopped reading.
I'm in the middle of these books:

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Brilliant. Just my favourite kind of book. It's so good I want to read it very slowly, savour it,
like the last bit of chocolate when you're competing with your sibling on who would run out first.
Oh, you never did that? Hmm, never lived have you?

Also, and this book is life changing:
The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen 'Awesome National Treasure' Fry

And, started this one since I was craving pages 13-45 which were
background reading for my bachelors degree:
Black Skin White Masks by Franz Fanon

You know you're on to something good when the author says he delayed the book
because although, "(T)his book should have been written three years ago . . . (these)
truths were a fire in me. . . Now I can tell them without being burned."
I know exactly what that means.

Also, been writing - poems mostly. Just finished a sonnet. That was homework.
It made me laugh. But that's about the writing process. And do we talk about that here?
Hmmm. Not anymore.

Muddle

Semester Two is on now.
There is a huge list of books to read so, naturally, I'm not reading anything.
I'm in the middle of a couple of books and writing a few poems.
Just want to share this lovely quote on poetry from Stephen Fry's book on poetry.
Fry quotes Jan Schreiber:

"The writing of poetry has been made laughably easy. There are no technical constraints. Knowledge of the tradition is not necessary, nor is a desire to communicate, this having been supplanted in many practitioners by the more urgent desire to express themselves. Even sophistication in the manipulation of syntax is not sought. Poetry, it seems, need no longer be at least as well written as prose."

How true is that? Its why I revert to the canon. Because there are too many people who say with great ease that they write poetry (I might be one among them) and produce mulch.
This makes me, personally, hunger for the discipline. Its not about expressing oneself. That's what Dr. James Stewart says ( one of our Professors whom I revere). Art is impersonal. Or else I ought to return to the indulgent confines of my personal diary.


Fry goes on to say that he finds writing without form "fantastically difficult." Why? He quotes W.H. Auden:

"The poet who writes free verse is like Robinson Crusoe on his desert island: he must do all his cooking, laundry and darning for himself. In a few exceptional cases, this manly independence produces something original and impressive, but more often the result is squalor - dirty sheets on the unmade bed and empty bottles on the unswept floor."

So true.
I personally feel a real lack in "communication" as I read contemporary poetry. As if by speaking clearly we would muddle our meanings.

Alright, must go and sip from my cup of Tesco "anti cold and flu" brew.

Miltonic Tinsel

 Tinsel. An accident of a word. I think it means trite. OED explains differently. And then we have what Seamus Heaney calls an accident.

Milton in a letter to Diodati, in 1637 (let's not bother who Diodati was, for the present. . . oh okay Charles Diodati, close friend):

"Listen, Diodati,but in secret, lest I blush; and let me talk to you grandiloquently for a while. You ask me what I am thinking of? So help me God, an immortality of fame."

 For Milton, fame and immortality were one. I can understand that.
Wonder what he would feel if he had read Swami Vivekananda: "That thirst for fame is the worst of all filth." 

More poetry would have ensued probably.

Random thoughts.

Tom Hiddleston's Tweets

Happy New Year 2013!

For this first post of a brand new year I wanted to write about a topic which occupies a considerable area of my mindspace: Mr. Thomas William Hiddleston. And his Twitter.

If you read between the lines here, you might not only gauge some connubial proclivities on my part as far this gentleman is concerned, but also indulge in some psychoanalysis and discover the why he is such a hotbed of hopes where maidens such as myself are concerned.

Before that I would like to say, I straggled across The Aloe by Katherine Mansfield. Quite a beautiful story! And yet not designated for the list of favourites. This might be because I read it very slowly, with huge gaps in between (filled with the discovery of Monty Python and Black Adder), and also completed yet another book ("wheels within wheels" Monty Bodkin would say). Still, quite a beautiful story and recommended.

The other book, more highly recommended and got through with in a jiff of time, is Gabriel Josipovici's 'Infinity The Story of a Moment'.  Appealed to me in every way, so that I would marry the book, if it asked me. (No, not really!) Brilliant character, brilliant mix of discourse and story, and above all, a fascinating voice! Absolutely loved it! Even if it's about music which, I do not understand or know anything much about. I read it aloud and the voice would completely involve me, make me the character! Such a pleasure!

But, yes, Mr. Thomas William Hiddleston's tweets.
Firstly, it is not wise to follow anyone who ends their twitter description with "loon".(They sometimes think they're joking but they really aren't).This is unless it is prefaced with such a grand job description. In this case, "Actor". In this circumstance it becomes a question of great good taste. Both on the part of the follower and the followed.

So whats special about this Twitter feed?
Enthusiastic for one thing, intelligent in the extreme, cultured and kind! And funny!

There are regular "Song of the Day"posts (which I've never heard but which I find cool because it is sharing a part of yourself in art) sometimes these are accompanied with enthusiasm. Sample this:

Tom Hiddleston ‏@twhiddleston

MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" just came on @thisisheart radio. Is there anything better on a Thursday morning? Is there anything better? 

or the recent one:

On my way to work for my last day on THOR 2 before Christmas. @thisisheart is playing The Pogues and quite frankly all is well.  (22 Dec)

What is much more pertinent to my interests is that there is the occasional 'Poem of the Day' as well. And so far, I am happy to say, I always like the poems ( happy announcement soon?). Here are a few recent ones:

Poem of the Day: "Wild Geese", by Mary Oliver. http://say.ly/HSw4Ra3 (27 Dec)

Poem of the Day: "Love After Love", by Derek Walcott. http://say.ly/rbh4SbX (31 Dec)

and, my favourite:

Poem of the Day: "The Truly Great", by Stephen Spender. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/241980 (15 Dec)

Now that I know that men who read poetry for the pure pleasure of it exist, I suppose, I shall have to stay single for longer than I originally intended. Such is life.

He has also quoted from 'Prufrock', Livy and Chinese proverbs. So if you have one of those grubby adenoidal existences (called  'teenagers')  festering under your roof, this gent's twitter feed might help inject a tidbit of wit into them.

Also, beautiful snippets from anywhere. Like this last evening: 

Perfect. RT “@exitthelemming: Baby and dog go walking. This may be the best short film ever http://bit.ly/XaJmec  /via @sturdyAlex”( 6 Jan)

He also seems a very idealistic being ( I know, no one with half a brain would fail to get that from the contents of his twitter), which I admire very much. 

So, funny, cultured, idealistic and passionate.

Recently voted Best Dressed Man. Advice given? "Try not to look like a tit!"

Humour. I kid you not!

And then interesting things happen to him. He does a spoof on MTV After Hours with a 'stache named Wendy, and his fans make him a book out of photos with them and wendystaches. The title is 'Project Wendy'. The back and forth was so warm and funny!

So, yes, his tweets are recommended on this blog.

Not that they need recommendation (395, 735 followers). There is a photo of him jumping when his army swelled to 50000.

I'm not sure he should be anywhere near terra firma now.

So that's my out-of-the-box recommendation for a New Year. A Twitter feed of an actor (who, by the way, has a double first in classics from Cambridge).

He's beautiful.

Updated to add: And he just retweeted Stephen Fry:
Absolutely achingly hilarious. “@stephenfry: Just in case you haven’t seen 2012’s finest autocorrect disasters: http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/the-25-funniest-autocorrects-of-2012 …

(I have laughed two seasons of Black Adder out)