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Tag overview for: 'literature'

Entries on this site with 'literature'

• off to japan
  Days and months are travellers of eternity. So are the years that pass by. Those who steer a boat across the sea, or drive a horse over the earth till they succumb to the
• god's dissatisfaction
  God breathed in deeply, looked at the mist around Him and murmured in the hushed tones of someone who has just made an unexpected and curious discovery, It would never hav
• sonnet ix
  Oh to be idle loving idleness! But I am idle all in hate of me; Ever in action's dream, in the false stress Of purposed action never set to be. Like a fierce beast self-pe
• special branch
  Some more on Stefan Themerson , whose 'Special Branch' - out of print these days - offers another great example of his unique style of mental gymnastics. Subtitled 'A Dial
• the mystery of the sardine
  'You see,' he said very quietly, 'a perfect system can never be perfect. A system has to be imperfect to be perfect. A little corruption, a little bribery, a little hypocr
• a network of paths
  Sometimes it feels as though we are wandering through a city without purpose. We walk down the street, turn at random down another street, stop to admire the cornice of a
• istanbul & the bosporus
  To be travelling through the middle of a city as great, historic and forlorn as Istanbul, and yet to feel the freedom of the open sea - that is the thrill of a trip along
• the master and margarita 2
  Another unlikely but rewarding graphic novel is the adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov 's ' The Master and Margarita ' by Andrzej Klimowski and Danusia Schejbal . The novel, r
• logicomix
  It's an ambitious idea, creating a graphic novel about mathematicians, logicians and philosophers arguing about absolute truth. But ' Logicomix: An Epic Search For Truth '
• and what is knowledge?
  And what is knowledge? What are our learned men save the descendants of witches and hermits who crouched in caves and in woods brewing herbs, interrogating shrew-mice and
• the gift
  ...a work of art is a gift, not a commodity. Or, to state the modern case with more precision, (...) works of art exist simultaneously in two 'economies', a market economy
• when the new season makes its way
  If after seeing ' Hadewijch ' ( reviewed before ), you're curious about the 13th century poet, mystic and beguine ('begijn') from Brabant, here's a sample of her work. Had
• franny and zooey
  Franny: What happened was, I got the idea in my head - and I could not get it out - that college was just one more dopey , inane place in the world dedicated to piling up
• korreltjie sand
  Korreltjie korreltjie sand klippie gerol in my hand klippie gesteek in my sak word korreltjie klein en plat Sonnetjie groot in die blou ek maak net 'n ogie van jou blink i
• an axe for the frozen sea inside us
  Great hard-hitting Kafka quote, spotted in Den Bosch, "Een boek: "Een bijl voor de bevroren zee in ons" ("A book: An axe for the frozen sea inside us").
• the master and margarita
  The Gospel has been the subject of many literary interpretations in the 20th century - famous examples that come to mind are Kazantzakis' ' The Last Temptation of Christ '
• the man who invented the zero
  Along with Borges and Cortázar , the Serbian writer Milorad Pavić was a great experimenter in non-linear narratives, creating dense labyrinths of prose, full of historical
• black marigolds
  Even now My thought is all of this gold-tinted king's daughter With garlands tissue and golden buds, Smoke tangles of her hair, and sleeping or waking Feet trembling in lo
• the fisher king
  Did you ever hear the story of the Fisher King? It begins with the king as a boy having to sleep alone in the forest to prove his courage so he can become king. While he's
• krapp's last tape
  In Samuel Beckett 's short play ' Krapp's Last Tape ' (1958) an old man reviews his life, listening to tapes he has recorded every year on his birthday, and making a new r
• most people are other people
  "De meeste mensen zijn andere mensen" - or in English: "Most people are other people" - on the former Heineken building in Rotterdam. It's a quote from the king of epigram
• bookish pharmacists
  ...Amalfitano asked him what books he liked and what book he was reading, just to make conversation. Without turning, the pharmacist answered that he liked books like The
• the beach of falesá
  Besides poetry Dylan Thomas wrote prose classics like 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog' and 'Adventures in the Skin Trade'. In the 1940's he also developed several f
• silent monologue
  Strange sight, ' Not I ' playing soundlessly on a large screen / billboard at Amsterdam Zuid-WTC station. As reviewed before , the film, starring Julianne Moore , is part
• where once the waters of your face
  Where once the waters of your face Spun to my screws, your dry ghost blows, The dead turns up its eye; Where once the mermen through your ice Pushed up their hair, the dry
• het grote verhaal
  Hebben wij een afspraak met het leven gemaakt? Hebben wij ons aan die afspraak gehouden? Hebben wij beloofd ons aan die afspraak te houden? Zijn wij de afspraak vergeten?
• the savage detectives
  What an impossible book to summarize, Roberto Bolaño 's ' The Savage Detectives '. An exploded novel with dozens of narrators and a frenzied story spilling out from 1975 M
• the rose of time
  when the watchman falls asleep you turn back with the storm to grow old embracing is the rose of time when bird roads define the sky you look behind at the sunset to emerg
• the voyage out
  After tracing Virgina Woolf 's increasingly complex modernist experiments - ' Mrs. Dalloway ', ' To the Lighthouse ', ' The Waves ' - reading ' The Voyage Out ', her first
• manhole 69
  "...What do you think the next step forward will be?" "Forward where?" Morley asked. Lang gestured expansively. "I mean up the evolutionary slope. Three hundred million ye
• investigation of a citizen above suspicion
  Elio Petri 's 1970 ' Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion ' ('Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto') is both a scathingly sarcastic political pamphl
• who's afraid of virginia woolf?
  First performed in 1962, Edward Albee 's ' Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? ' is still shockingly savage in its portrayal of a disillusioned marriage. In Onafhankelijk Tone
• a pataphor for what?
  Some more on Oulipo (see previous post ), many of whose members were also 'pataphysicians. A pseudo-philosophy devised by French playwright and surrealist avant la lettre
• 100,000,000,000,000 sonnets
  ' 100,000,000,000,000 Sonnets ' is a nice online version of Raymond Queneau 's 'Cent Mille Milliards de Poèmes' (' Hundred Thousand Billion Poems '). Composed of fourteen
• the religious experience of philip k. dick
  In 1974, science fiction writer Philip K. Dick experienced a series of mystical visions. They would greatly influence his writing, most explicitly in ' Valis ', a philosop
• the flowering past
  There is no poetry when you live there. Those stones are yours, those noises are your mind, The forging thunderous trams and streets that bind You to the dreamed-of bar wh
• inanna's journey to hell
  'Inanna's Journey to Hell', composed in Mesopotamia (what is now Iraq) in the third millennium BC, ranks among the oldest surviving stories of mankind. Inanna , the Lady o
• quarks
  As a postscript to the previous post , did you know the word quark (the elementary particle) came from James Joyce 's ' Finnegans Wake '? American phycisist Murray Gell-Ma
• the voices of marrakesh
  In 1952 Elias Canetti , best known for his novel ' Auto-da-Fé ' and his study ' Crowds and Power ', visited Marrakesh with a British film company. (Would be interesting to
• jordan wellington lint
  The 23 stories collected by Zadie Smith in ' The Book of Other People ' have one thing in common: they're about character. As Smith notes, "the instruction was simple: mak
• and this i dreamt, and this i dream
  And this I dreamt, and this I dream, And some time this I will dream again, And all will be repeated, all be re-embodied, You will dream everything I have seen in dream. T
• al-mahdi
  "What inferno, what terrible plague or huge massacre or catastrophic earthquake is needed to make those people stop and look around them, to contemplate in silence what te
• 100 films
  Bit of an abstract milestone, but the previous post marked the 100th entry tagged with film on this blog. That's 100 reviews (well, not quite, some are just quotes or link
• the simorgh
  It's a bit weird to use a spoiler warning when reviewing a book that's over 800 years old. But ' The Conference of the Birds ' ('Mantiq at-Ta'ir'), by twelfth century Sufi
• the railroad station
  My nonarrival in the city of N. took place on the dot. You'd been alerted in my unmailed letter. You were able not to be there at the agreed-upon time. The train pulled up
• the giant mole
  Those, and I am one of them, who find even a little ordinary-sized mole disgusting, would probably have died of disgust if they had seen the giant mole that was observed a
• all i have to bring
  It's all I have to bring to-day,   This, and my heart beside, This, and my heart, and all the fields,   And all the meadows wide. Be sure you count, should I forget, -   S
• notes from underground
  I am a sick man... I am a wicked man. An unattractive man. I think my liver hurts. These opening statements set the tone for what must be one of the most savage rants in w
• repose
  F. Scott Fitzgerald 's great tragic novel of Roaring Twenties Americans in Europe, ' Tender is the Night ', has some of its best moments in his sharp social observations.
• tales of the alhambra
  The swan song of the Moors in Europe, the 14th century Alhambra palace remains suffused with exotic mystery. Located on a hilltop overlooking Granada , its fortified walls
• to the lighthouse
  Virginia Woolf 's fifth novel ' To the Lighthouse ', published in 1927, is one of her most experimentally modernist works. The book's genius is hard to summarize, except b
• the last concern
  Sequence To sleep, with the moon in one eye and the sun in the other, Love in your mouth, a lovely bird in your hair, Adorned like the fields, the woods, the routes, the s
• galaxie 500
  Having recently rediscovered Galaxie 500 , it's amazing to find how undated their music still sounds, and how little known they remain. As has often been remarked before,
• the encyclopedia of the dead
  For fans of the vertiginous fictions of Borges , the short story collection 'The Encyclopedia of the Dead' by Serbian writer Danilo Kiš is worth checking out. Kiš, greatly
• dutch milk wood
  One of the towering figures in Dutch (or Flemish, as some would insist) literature, Hugo Claus left a huge oeuvre of novels, plays and poetry. He was also a prolific trans
• flags in a vacuum
  There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum. - Arthur C. Clarke , who defined serious science-fiction with such books as ' 2001: A Space Odys
• ophelia
  John Everett Millais ' ' Ophelia ' is currently on display at the Van Gogh Museum . Based on the scene in ' Hamlet ' of Ophelia drowning (which Shakespeare left open for i
• the jewel stair's grievance
  The jeweled steps are already quite white with dew, It is so late the dew soaks my gauze stockings, And I let down the crystal curtain And watch the moon through the clear
• deer park
  Just four lines long, the ancient Chinese poem 'Deer Park', by Buddhist poet Wang Wei , has inspired poets and translators through the ages. Eliot Weinberger 's '19 Ways o
• the old man and the sea
  Watching Aleksandr Petrov 's stunningly beautiful animation of ' The Old Man and the Sea ' online undoubtedly can't begin to compare with seeing it on an Imax screen, for
• things
  If you thought materialist escapism and spiritual dabbling were modern phenomena, check out this very amusing short story by D.H. Lawrence , called 'Things', written in 19
• tarzan vs. ibm
  As Nouvelle Vague 's venture into science fiction, Jean-Luc Godard 's ' Alphaville ' (1965) is still a fascinating piece of conceptual (as opposed to spectacular) sci-fi.
• in jerusalem
  Some inspiring literary discoveries today at the Winternachten festival in The Hague, at a program ironically titled How to Bluff your Way into Arabic Literature . Featuri
• the good soldier švejk
  ' The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War ' is the full title of Jaroslav Hašek 's satirical masterpiece, left incomplete by his premature de
• marquis de canteclaer
  A promise made here over two years ago was to post some more of the poetry of Marquis de Canteclaer. In full, Querulijn Xaverius Marquis De Canteclaer van Barneveldt was o
• mathom
  Moving houses is always a confrontation with all the stuff that you've allowed to accumulate over the years. P.K. Dick called this ' kipple ' (and considered it a lost bat
• sweeney todd
  Man: Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd. His skin was pale and his eye was odd. He shaved the faces of gentlemen Who never thereafter were heard of again. He trod a path that
• the consolation of philosophy
  Since today is the memorial day of Saint Severinus , better known as Boethius , it seems fitting to take a look at his masterpiece ' The Consolation of Philosophy ' ('De C
• no one belongs here more than you
  I woke at seven A.M. and said to myself: This is the second day of the rest of my life. It's not one thing in particular, it's just the sensation of being adrift. As if th
• the shock doctrine
  What to think of this short film by Alfonso Cuarón and Naomi Klein , ' The Shock Doctrine '? Without having read the book of the same title that the film is meant to intro
• war and peace
  A "loose baggy monster" Henry James once called Leo Tolstoy 's ' War and Peace '. At over 1300 pages, with no clearly defined plot and featuring some 500 characters, it ce
• god is in the details
  The absolute highlight of the Persia exhibition in the Hermitage Amsterdam was its collection of medieval manuscripts and miniatures . Unfortunately, due to their fragilit
• a scanner darkly
  Faithfully adaptated from Philip K. Dick 's novel, Richard Linklater 's animated 'A Scanner Darkly ' is a grim tale of drug-fueled paranoia. As with most P.K. Dick novels,
• so it is in life
  So it is in life: a fool through and through, and yet he wants to express himself. Under the title ' So It Is in Life ', this week's issue of the New Yorker contains some
• barbaric yawp
  To quote some more from Walt Whitman 's endlessly quotable ' Song of Myself ' (see previous post ): I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric
• what is the grass?
  A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of
• stand-in stunt
  Interesting revelation last week: turns out the book 'Stand-in' ( reviewed here ) was not written by Sieger Sloot at all but by Ernest van der Kwast . A textbook example o
• berlin slogans
  More to follow. First, off to Mexico... Update: The above neon cry, in front of Berlin's Deutsches Theater , is of course a quote from Goethe 's ' Faust ' (as was kindly p
• one must
  Couldn't find a translation for this one, so it'll be in Dutch today... Men moet Men moet zijn zomers nog tellen, zijn vonnis nog vellen, men moet zijn winter nog sneeuwen
• a fairy-tale from the north
  An old man set out to go into the woods, although he didn't know what for. Then he came back and said: -- Hey, old woman, you! The old woman fell straight down. Since then
• chinese art and greek art
  Following up on my earlier post on Pamuk's 'The Black Book', it appears the story about the competition between the two painters was inspired by a poem by Jalal ad-Din Muh
• the black book
  This post is not about Paul Verhoeven's film but about Orhan Pamuk 's novel ' The Black Book ' ('Kara Kitap'). As a caleidoscopic, metaphysical detective novel, 'The Black
• topor
  Some samples of the savage surrealism of Roland Topor . His novel ' The Tenant ', which was later filmed by Polanski , contains a telling quote which sums up his world vie
• the golem
  Gustav Meyrink 's 1915 novel 'The Golem' is a classic of fantastic and expressionist fiction. Imagine Kafka (a friend of Meyrink's) writing ' Frankenstein ' (published onl
• craftsmanship
  To be a craftsman is to be able to separate the work one is doing at the time from everything else, to know exactly and to hold before one's eyes one thing only: what shou
• the year of the death of ricardo reis
  José Saramago 's novel ' The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis ' ('O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis') is a classic example of intertextuality , blurring the line between fac
• time & perfection
  There was an artist in the city of Kouroo who was disposed to strive after perfection. One day it came into his mind to make a staff. Having considered that in an imperfec
• the dark eye
  Bit of a halting experience, playing the 12 year old cd-rom adventure game ' The Dark Eye ', but still great for its haunting atmosphere. Based on three Edgar Alan Poe sto
• stand-in
  This won't be the most objective review of Sieger Sloot Ernest van der Kwast 's fast-paced and witty debut novel ' Stand-in ', though it may well be the first one in Engli
• narziss & goldmund
  Adapting Herman Hesse 's novel ' Narcissus and Goldmund ' to the theatre poses a difficult challenge. Hesse's novel, set in Medieval Germany, sets up a juxtaposition of ar
• tags
  As a start of the long overdue redesign of this blog, i'll be experimenting with adding tags to entries. So bear with potential bugs... Tagging, as a form of adding metada
• the mahabharata
  The Indian Mahabharata has been called the longest epic in the world. Spanning over 74.000 Sanskrit verses (about ten times the length of the Iliad and Odyssey combined!),
• global literature
  At the opening of the Winternachten literary festival in The Hague, Indian writer and critic Pankaj Mishra lectured on ' The Globalization of Literature, the Making of an
• a delicate balance
  'Wankel Evenwicht', a Dutch rendition of Edward Albee 's ' A Delicate Balance ' by Carver and Onafhankelijk Toneel at the Toneelschuur , provided captivating acting all ar
• 2 christmas stories
  Nostalgic or unsentimental, Brooklyn or Wales... Here's two completely different, yet both classic Christmas stories. There's the mythical, long-gone Christmas of Dylan Th
• memory of holland
  The first David Reid Poetry Translation Prize resulted in over 30 translations of Marsman 's famous poem 'Herinnering aan Holland' / 'Memory of Holland' . Thinking of Holl
• omar khayyám
  ' The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám ' is one of the great classics of Persian poetry. Written by mathematician, astronomer and poet Omar Khayyám (1048 - 1123), the original col
• ahmet abi
  Apparently this weird, tucked away illuminated sign in Rotterdam is an art project by Arno Coenen . The text is based on a Turkish poem by Edip Cansever called ' The Voice
• nonsense nursery syllables
  Today I imagine the words of countless Languages to be suddenly fetterless - After long incarceration In the fortress of Grammar, suddenly up in rebellion. Maddened by the
• revolutionary road
  The Revolutionary Hill Estates had not been designed to accommodate a tragedy. Even at night, as if on purpose, the development held no looming shadows and no gaunt silhou
• carceri d'invenzione
  Giovanni Battista Piranesi 's 'Carceri d'Invenzione' ('Imaginary Prisons') are a series of poster-size etchings depicting a dark prison world - though prison is far too ta
• leaf by niggle
  In Tolkien 's epic oeuvre, his fairy tales are like single gems compared to the vast treasure chest of ' The Lord of the Rings ' - often overlooked but delicately polished
• lord marquis
  Mephistopheles: Old bag of bones, can you not recognize You lord and master, here before your eyes? You scare-crow, what shall hold my sentence back, That blots you out, y
• not i
  Finally saw some of the ' Beckett on Film ' pieces at the Beckett Centenary Festival in Dublin. The short (45 sec) ' Breath ' by Damien Hirst , ' Act Without Words I ' by
• capote
  Most reviews of ' Capote ' focus on Philip Seymour Hoffman 's role as Truman Capote . And yes, Hoffman is just excellent as the effeminate, egocentric, annoying, genius wr
• yes and no
  As translator Judith Wilkinson remarks, the poetry of Toon Tellegen lends itself well to translation, "not only because of its linguistic simplicity - one might almost cal
• the seventh sally
  Died yesterday, Stanisław Lem , the Polish science-fiction writer best known for his book ' Solaris ' and its film adaptations by Tarkovsky and Soderbergh , was really a p
• chasing phantoms
  A very fitting final Ro Theater production of both director Guy Cassiers (of Proustian fame) and actor Joop Keesmaat, ' Hersenschimmen ' (' Out of Mind ') is an enthrallin
• factotum
  After Mickey Rourke in ' Barfly ', who would attempt to revisit Henry Chinaski, Bukowski 's legendary alter ego? The answer is Matt Dillon , in Bent Hamer 's adaptation of
• mephisto
  The adaptation of ' Mephisto ', which had its premiere tonight at the Leidse Schouwburg , made for a thoughtful theatre experience held together by a great group of actors
• boy in darkness
  Mervyn Peake 's novella 'Boy in Darkness' is a little known addition to the famous Gormenghast trilogy. Published (oddly enough) as a children's book, it is a sketchy but
• mestre
  Master, serene All hours We waste, if in The wasting them, As in a jar, We set flowers. The beginning of Ricardo Reis' poem 'Mestre'. Reis was one of the Portuguese poet F
• zen logic
  Without claiming to understand much of Zen (if that's even the point), here's a koan that seems to sum up its spirit nicely: A master was asked the question, "What is the
• als das kind kind war
  Als das Kind Kind war, hatte es von nichts eine Meinung, hatte keine Gewohnheit, saß oft im Schneidersitz, lief aus dem Stand, hatte einen Wirbel im Haar und machte kein G
• 21 stories
  For fans of J.D. Salinger , the legendarily reclusive writer who hasn't published anything for the last 40 years (but who is rumoured to have a pile of manuscripts in a sa
• the machine stops
  E.M. Forster , not exactly known for science fiction, wrote an interesting short story called ' The Machine Stops ' (first published in 1909), depicting a future society e
• shi jing
  Some more on China... A sample from the ' Shi Jing ' ('Book of Songs' or 'Book of Odes'), the oldest collection of poetry from ancient China and one of the Five Classics .
• finding lost time
  Finally saw the last episode of the awesome four part theatre adaptation of Marcel Proust 's ' À la Recherche du Temps Perdu ' by the Ro Theater . All directed by Guy Cass
• kipple
  'Cause i can never find the original definition for this great concept, here's the complete quote: Kipple is useless objects, like junk mail or match folders after you use
• denkraam
  Sorry, the death of graphic artist / writer Marten Toonder , creator of 177 Tom Poes & Olivier B. Bommel comics and coiner of God knows how many Dutch language innovations
• spacetimemoney continuum
  His wealth resides less in possessions than in the fact of that most modern of powers, mobility, the ability to be present at practically the same time in every part of th
• little patch of yellow wall
  Visiting the Mauritshuis today to see the 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' for real (as reality follows blog posts these days), I was struck by that other Vermeer , hanging acr
• the ultimate anecdote
  Welcome back to 1999. Jacob van Duijn's new novel 'Hyper' chronicles the height of the internet hype in Amsterdam through the eyes of a honey voiced consultant with an inf
• a passing glimpse
  I often see flowers from a passing car That are gone before I can tell what they are. I want to get out of the train and go back To see what they were beside the track. I
• a secret veiled by a secret
  It's the simplest possible system. Consider only the outer circle. To code something, you replace each letter of your original message with the letter that precedes it: fo
• a sample of blocks
  In the short Dutch novel "Blokken" ("Blocks") by Ferdinand Bordewijk , the main character is the State, a communist totalitarian regime. The State forbids any individualis
• cryptical arabesques
  H.P. Lovecraft , one of the grandfathers of horror stories (and probably one of the few writers that can be called gothic and baroque at the same time), turns out to be qu
• the chance of humming
  A man standing on two logs in a river might do all right floating with the current while humming in the now. Though if one log is tied to a camel, who is also heading sout
• fear & loathing
  Just to prove it's all true in Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas , here's a photo i found of the real Hunter S. Thompson and his attorney Oscar Acosta (portrayed in the film by
• are you now or were you ever...?
  Searching for a worthy quote in memoriam of Arthur Miller, the American playwright ("Death of a Salesman", "The Crucible", "After the Fall", etc.) who died last week, i st
• hurlyburly in dutch
  When a group of young Dutch actors decides to do David Rabe's play Hurlyburly, comparisons are inevitable to the film adaptation which starred such names as Sean Penn, Kev
• apologies to my readers
  Imagine two men holding a captured puma on a rope. If they want to approach each other, the puma will attack, because the rope will slacken; only if they both pull simulta
• courtly manners
  The legends of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table are a highpoint of courtly literature. Chivalrous knights go on perilous quests in defense of their ladies' h
• time, pt. 3
  'An ivory labyrinth!' I exclaimed. 'A minimum labyrinth.' 'A labyrinth of symbols,' he corrected. 'An invisible labyrinth of time.' From "The Garden of Forking Paths" - Jo
• information, pt. 1
  It was hell living in the twenty-first century. Information transfer had reached the velocity of light. [He] had once fed a tenword plot outline into a robot fiction machi

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