I ran across this poem last night, and was so moved by it that I wanted to share it with you all. You can also hear it read most dramatically at The Poetry Foundation. I think “most mad and moonly” is the most swoon-worthy phrase I’ve heard in ages.
[love is more thicker than forget]
e.e. cummings
love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail
it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea
love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive
it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky
E.E. Cummings, “[love is more thicker than forget]” from Complete Poems 1904-1962, edited by George J. Firmage.
(image: Self-Portrait from the 1950′s. What an incredibly creative soul! He’s a great painter, too!).
I am super excited that The Classics Club is doing another spin! I had such a fun time wringing my hands over the last one — what number is going to be picked!? What is my reading fate?! After the number was chosen, I loved matching it to my book (Frankenstein!) then reading about everyone else’s destiny. Finally, I deeply enjoyed the book itself. What a fun game! I am so ready to do it again!
I’ve listed 20 books taken from my Classics Club list below.Once I deleted the books I’ve read or will be reading soon for read-a-longs or other projects, this is pretty much all I have! I think when I do my One Year Classics Club Anniversary list maintenance, I’m going to have to bring my list up to 100 books from 50. (Glee!)
So, here is my list! Monday, Monday, what will you bring me?
The Realm of Secondhand Souls by Sandra Shea is a beautiful book. I didn’t want to finish it. I actually read three pages every night for the last two weeks so it wouldn’t end just yet. It’s supremely lyrical yet there are hard, uncomfortable truths amongst the tattered lace and dried flowers — particularly about the dangers of memory, holding on to the past, and closing yourself off from pain. It’s also a book about the arduous and circuitous process of making ripped, stained, and shattered things (people, you) whole again.
The writing makes you feel like you’re underwater or floating on air or dreaming with your inner eye and all of your senses. Let me show you:
Novena brought the cup to her mouth and took a sip. The tea was slightly bitter on her tongue, but as she held it in her mouth, it changed to a sweeter afternote, like the tender leaves of a rare plant. She swallowed, and she felt it coating her insides like the thick nap of green velvet.
The next sip brought more green, shattering into a thousand greens, the green of parrots, snakes, emeralds, of melon, jade, and new grass, greens so translucent they nearly blinded her. Yet all of these were greens she knew, all of them in a place she knew — the same room, with dark wood walls, a pink sofa, the nap of green velvet again, this time between her fingers. She saw the colored lengths of fabric hung at her windows, recalled the scent of tea and curry and the low murmur of women’s voices in the late afternoon.
Memory was rising in her like steam, steam and the smell of slightly scorched cloth, of warmth and industry.
Ahhhhhhhhh.
One of the things that I am always searching for on PaperBack Swap is vintage knitting, embroidery, and sewing books, and this book kept coming up on my keyword searches. I dismissed it a number of times — I wasn’t looking for fiction! But oh, that’s a beautiful cover! Hmmm, I do love that title! until it came up on so many searches that I gave one of my points to get it, not knowing quite what to expect. What strange fortuitousness.
I am very, very, very excited to take part in the Beats of Summer, beginning in June! The Beats hold a very special place in my heart: they were the first group of authors I studied en groupe, on my own in college and just after. They were the right writers at the right time: so very cool (as a punk I loathed hippies but could completely relate to the wine and coffee swilling, up all night, cardigan and glasses wearing Beats), experimental in all aspects of their lives, and the writing! It was immediate and innovative and emotional and explored things I cared about that very minute. I was also thrilled about how many women writers I found in the group and how much I related to their writing. I was consumed.
Flash forward twenty odd years. We read Kerouac’s On the Road for an Unputdownables read-a-long, and I picked the novel up with some trepidation. I was afraid to find that it didn’t speak to me any more. Maybe I would find it naive, or simplistic?
Well, I loved it. I loved it even more than my twenty year old self did. I noticed so many things and felt so many emotions that my younger self just didn’t have the background to understand. When it came time to compile my Classics Club list, I made sure that the Beats were on it. I am so excited to dive into that part of my list this summer. Thanks Adam at RoofBeamReader for the opportunity to do so with others.
I’m planning on reading The Dharma Bums by Kerouac, Howl by Ginsberg, Off the Road by Carolyn Cassady (which I scored recently on PaperBackSwap — yeah! and loads and loads of Diane di Prima poems. I also plan to drink Chianti from one of those bottles wrapped in straw, lots and lots of coffee, wear my beret ALL SUMMER and play the bongos. ONLY KIDDING (about the bongos).
Quick, quick! If you’d like to read The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle over at Unputdownables, signups are here! I say quick because we are discussing the first 20 pages this Friday, May 3! If you need a copy, Project Gutenberg has it for free.
I have a sneaking suspicion that I could become a mystery addict (based on my PBS watching habits) so I can’t wait to see what I think of this story! This may be the start of something…mysterious!
What can you say in a blog post about experiencing the Vast Human Condition over a three month span? I’ll try.
As I said on Unputdownables, reading Crime and Punishment was exhilarating. Annihilating. I felt full of fear, compassion, hate, love, you name it. I questioned every idea I thought I believed in. Repeatedly. The end of section six was the most INCREDIBLE end of a novel I’ve ever experienced. Even after the epilogue (which I did not like!) you get the sense that nothing is complete.
During the read-a-long, I kept on referring to the book as “grey” — as in not black and white. A prostitute has the most pure morals and motives of the book. One character who seems at first generous and protecting (Luzhin) is actually the worst villain of the book (yes, worse than Svidrigaïlov. Much worse in my opinion). Dostoevsky is talking about higher things than our petty, changing societal norms. Whilst I think he has some definite opinions (love and kindness as the only remedy we have in this world) Dostoevsky is definitely asking more questions than providing answers. After reading this book, I may just have to admit there are no answers, but only questions.
These words of Razumihin get to the heart of it for me. I’ll leave you with them. You may feel just as uncomfortable and unresolved as I feel right now after reading them. I hope they inspire you to read Crime and Punishment.
Human nature is not taken into account, it is excluded, it’s not supposed to exist! They don’t recognise that humanity, developing by a historical living process, will become at last a normal society, but they believe that a social system that has come out of some mathematical brain is going to organise all humanity at once and make it just and sinless in an instant, quicker than any living process! That’s why they instinctively dislike history, ‘nothing but ugliness and stupidity in it,’ and they explain it all as stupidity! That’s why they so dislike the living process of life; they don’t want a living soul! The living soul demands life, the soul won’t obey the rules of mechanics, the soul is an object of suspicion, the soul is retrograde! But what they want though it smells of death and can be made of india-rubber, at least is not alive, has no will, is servile and won’t revolt! And it comes in the end to their reducing everything to the building of walls and the planning of rooms and passages in a phalanstery! The phalanstery is ready, indeed, but your human nature is not ready for the phalanstery—it wants life, it hasn’t completed its vital process, it’s too soon for the graveyard! You can’t skip over nature by logic. Logic presupposes three possibilities, but there are millions!
(how great is this cover for C&P? It really gets to the heart of what the book is about, in my opinion. Cover design by Shelby Blair – entry for the 50 Watts’ Polish Book Cover Contest. You can see more entries here — they’re all so compelling)
Yup, we tie up the Crime and Punishment discussion next week, so I thought we could do something playful this week (as well as think about some serious questions)! I asked everyone to think of a song that exemplifies the major characters. Some I’ve suggested already: Svidrigailov = Sympathy for the Devil by the Rolling Stones. Katerina Ivanova = entire album Live Through this by Hole.
I can’t help myself to do yet one more. I have decided that if Raskolnikov were alive today-ish, he’d be a huge post-punk devotee, and one of his favorite albums would be Echo and the Bunnymen’s Porcupine. Check out some of these lyrics — don’t you think Ras would be compulsively listening to this record? (He’d be perverse enough to still listen to vinyl like a certain someone *cough cough cough* aka, me.)
From Gods Will Be Gods:
How can you pretend?
When there’s so much at stake
That it’s a different world
And your hands don’t shake
…
Have to go, I go
You’re the strangest taste
I am total love
I am total hate
From Ripeness:
When you grasped the question
Did you miss the meaning
When you met your challenge
Did you go out fighting
How will we recover
Ripeness when it’s over
…
I’ve discovered my Nietzsche
I’ve discovered my Nietzsche
Death should be unleashed or something
(How will we recover?)
(Ripeness when it’s over)
Do tell me what’s the difference?
(How will we recover?)
From The Cutter:
Am I the happy loss
Will I still recoil
When the skin is lost
Am I the worthy cross
Will I still be soiled
When the dirt is off
From Porcupine:
There is no comparison
Between things about to have been
Missing the point of our mission
Will we become misshapen?
It’s my blog, and I can post all the lyrics to Higher Hell if I want to!
Smack in the middle of today
Got to learn new words
Merely got to simply say
I think we all misheard
Cracked in the middle of me
Have to find my heart
Smiling equates with happy
But I know they’re miles apart
Just like my lower heaven
You know so well my higher hell
When confronted by
Continuing the course
Will you open up
Or do I have to force
The words right out
Of your stubborn mouth?
Stunted of course,
Guilty in their growth
Just like my lower heaven
You know so well my higher hell
Crashed through the floor today
I couldn’t find my legs
Suppose you live and learn
Learn it again and again
Smack in the middle of today
Got to find new words
Merely got to simply say
I think we all misheard
Just like my lower heaven
You know so well my higher hell
(When confronted by continuing the course)
(Will you open up or do I have to force)
(The words right out)
(Of your stubborn mouth)
(Stunted of course)
(Guilty in their growth)
Of course songs are not just lyrics — I encourage you to listen to the album in its entirety via the link above, and if you are short on time, Higher Hell is the first thing you see in this post.
P.S. Ian McCulloch’s lips rival Tom Hardy’s. Just sayin’
