apocketfulofprose

[apocketfulofprose]

“I’m a rare book librarian. I get to touch books every single day. My colleague and I have a joke that we are Defenders of Wonder. A physical book assigns a sense of reverence to the content inside. It’s the same feeling you get when you look at a painting or hear a piece of music. And I think that’s something worth defending. And just like a book gives reverence to it’s content, I think the library gives reverence to books. The building itself is a masterpiece. So many famous thinkers have come here to study and write. Just being here connects you to that lineage.”

[apocketfulofprose]

In her heart, Ella stayed the same. For she remembered her promise to her mother. Have courage, and be kind.

[apocketfulofprose]

Do you have any tips on absorbing The Lord of the Rings? I reread "The Fellowship" for the first time in a decade and sadly I understand it no better than I did than. I mean, the characters, the plotline, the meaning behind it--all that I understand. But whenever they go off into the dark recesses of the past and start dropping all these Elven or Dwarven names like they assume I've already taken my A-Level in Middle-Earth History my mind becomes a total blank. Help me, wise one.

For those who do not follow my blog closely, or don’t know me IRL, please know that Tolkien has my heart. I did my undergrad thesis on him, and have  shelves dedicated to him in my library. I met the love of my life during an exchange about Tolkien. (Love of my life was wrong; I corrected him; true love reigned.) 

Here is my terrible secret: I skim LOTR. 

We should keep in mind that, when Tolkien sounds like a giant gasbag, it’s because he is a giant gasbag. For LOTR, he was writing for an audience of one: himself. The language was more important than the story; the plot grew out of the languages he created. Action, therefore, and snappy plotlines, were of no interest to him. It is perfectly reasonable to side-eye, say, the chapter “The Muster of Rohan” and ask, “Really? What this completely necessary?”. (Tolkien would probably reply that he could not care less about your opinion, and please stop bothering him.)

For practical tips, here are my suggestions: 

Consider the level of laziness/gasbaggery: Ask yourself: am I fed up at this passage/chapter/book of Tolkien’s because I’m being a lazy reader, or because Tolkien is a giant gasbag? If the former, try to practice self-discipline! If the latter, skim. 

Consider the language and audience: Other writers create a fictional world and cast of characters, and then add the language around it. For Tolkien, language creates the plot. Read the book, knowing that the actions of the characters are not necessarily the most important thing in the book. Also, remember that Tolkien was only writing for himself. If you’re not interesting in part of the book, that’s fine! 

Do not be afraid to skim. LOTR is not a bible. Tolkien is not suited to everyone’s tastes. If you see pages and pages without dialogue and you’re about to cry, no one will arrest you if you skip those pages. (I’m rereading LOTR now and I’ve skipped a whole bunch of stuff.) 

I love Tolkien dearly, but the man was unquestionably a massive nerd, and, on occasion, an equally massive gasbag. I do think reading LOTR is a great way to become a more disciplined reader. You can try limiting yourself to 10 pages, half a chapter, a whole chapter, each time you sit down to read the book. The more closely you read the book, the easier it will be to know what to skip later. 

[apocketfulofprose]

Sonder: The realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own.

Opia: The ambiguous intensity of Looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable.

Monachopsis: The subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place.

[apocketfulofprose]

Figured it would be fun to animate this :) 

[apocketfulofprose]

She was of the stuff of which great men's mothers are made.

Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

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It is never very difficult to get to know anyone who has a dog.

W. Somerset Maugham, Ashenden

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"If he writes her a few sonnets, he loves her. If he writes her 300 sonnets, he loves sonnets"

- my english professor

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He passed a good deal of time in the book-shops turning over the pages of books that would have been worth reading if life were a thousand years long.

W. Somerset Maugham, Ashenden

[apocketfulofprose]

Ashenden reflected that this was the mistake the amateur humorist, as opposed to the professional, so often made; when he made a joke he harped on it. The relations of the joker to his joke should be as quick and desultory as those of a bee to its flower. He should make his joke and pass on. There is of course no harm if, like the bee approaching the flower, he buzzes a little; for it is just as well to announce to a thick-headed world that a joke is intended.

W. Somerset Maugham, Ashenden

[apocketfulofprose]

Moby Dick Shadowbox :: Suzette Korduner

[apocketfulofprose]

I hope that you will possess yourselves of money enough to travel and to idle, to contemplate the future or the past of the world, to dream over books and loiter at street corners and let the line of thought dip deep into the stream.

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

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One goes into the room—but the resources of the English language would be much put to the stretch, and whole flights of words would need to wing their way illegitimately into existence before a woman could say what happens when she goes into a room.

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

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Moreover, a book is not made of sentences laid end to end, but of sentences built, if an image helps, into arcades and domes.

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

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What one means by integrity, in the case of the novelist, is the conviction that he gives one that this is the truth.

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

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For mastering pieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

[apocketfulofprose]

Indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own