#I should not be given leeway to talk about books or poetry if you want me to stay syntetic

[greypetrel]

Hi! What’s your favorite book??

Oh damn you uncovered Pandora's box, THANK YOU FOR DOING IT. :D

I can't choose only one to save my life, but a selection of my favourites, dividing between prose and poetry/theatre... Under the cut because IT LONG. And I'll jump at every chance to speak about my favourite books. (ask the Literature major about books and have them go on rambling for hours)

Prose:

- Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien . Getting into the saga has been one of those formative events for me, as for many other people around. It's an adventure, it's full of love and hope, it can be fun and light and go into deep themes as well. I'm in love with all of Tolkien's works (the fairy tales are so sweet and tender, you can see how much he loves his children reading Roverandom)(and Tree and Leaf has a special place in my heart). I majored in Germanic Philology because of him, and I can say I wouldn't be the same person if I haven't ever read LOTR.

- Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov. Another one of those books I can tell had a "before" and "after" in my life. I LOVE a good satyre, and Bulgakov is just *chef's kiss*. Wouldn't recommend it to anyone that knows little of Russian History or thinks erroneously (sorry not sorry get better informations) that Lenin was a good statesman and a good person. But... There's love, there's a sad woman being empowered by going outside the fence and expectations, good and bad are reversed, there's this very russian theme of strong women saving their male love interest (or trampling them. Seriously, female characters in Russian or Ukrainian as in this case classic authors are SOMETHING ELSE). Social and political criticism. And, a giant cat walking around Moscow and causing ruckus, and I don't know what you could possibly want more from a book.

- The Count of Montecristo, Alexandre Dumas. I distinctly remember barging into my therapist studio after I finished it and saying I was sad because yes I could read this book again, but it wouldn't ever be the first time again. What a glorious, epic book! Managing to mash epic themes with that underlying TRASH that it's typical of Dumas and he manages always to make work so well (the convenient cave full of treasures that NOBODY ever found but this one priest? Seriously Alexandre? XD ). Great, great, great book.

- A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf. It's one of those books, along Animal Farm and Se Questo è un Uomo, that I'd have EVERYONE read. It's technically non-fiction, but Mrs Woolf had her way to make it a great read. Go read it if you haven't.

- Two Years, Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, Salman Rushdie. Salman Rushdie could write a shopping list and make it the best thing ever. I love his style, I love magical realism, and I'm choosing this only because it was the first I read and I had a blast. It's glorious it's great, I love it, and I'm so sad Midnight's Children has such a lame adaptation (but it's not a book that's easily translatable if not in a series Game of Thrones long...).

- Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer. My goodness, the heartbreak of this book. It's one I have quotes saved around notebooks. It's heart-breaking in the most beautiful way, he's definitely one of those authors you either love or hate... I'm on the love end of the spectrum.

- Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen. It's basic bitch of me, I know. I don't care. As above, I'm all for social satyre and Miss Austen was just on another plane of existance on that. I'll fight people saying she wrote romances. She did not. Northanger Abbey holds a special place in my heart as well, but who doesn't have a crush on Mr Darcy, beside people who read this book thinking it was a romance? No no no read it again in the perspective that the author is mocking the heck out of every single character. Lizzie included. Austen is FIERCE. And Mr Darcy is such a beloved character because he learns from his mistakes and he's not afraid to admit it. Wow.

- Vita Scritta da Esso (Life written by himself), Vittorio Alfieri. I am not the biggest fan of italian literature, it's too much impronted on realism at all costs and MEH. Vittorio Alfieri was an anglophile and one that looked well beyond the Alps for his writings. His life was so entertaining and damn if he can make it entertaining and fun! That man travelled Europe, looke the fucking Kaiser in the eye (it was very offensive to do), had affairs with a Duchess, his long term partner was another English noblewoman... Who was married! And they were together since they met until he died! She was the one who published this Autobiography! Also personal preference: he wrote a whole satyre saying shit about the Accademia della Crusca and I love him madly for that. GO READ ABOUT VITTORIO ALFIERI.

Poetry/Theatre:

- Gitanjali, Rabindranath Tagore. Stop everything you're doing and read this. Now. You're welcome in advance.

- Poem Without a Hero, Anna Akhmatova. Anna Akhmatova would be very welcomed to step on me, I'm saying this shamelessly, it's just... URGH, it's melancholic, it's epic, it's heart-gutching.

- Anything by Christina Rossetti. Anything. Give me Christina Rossetti and some pre-raphaelites and I'd be happy.

- The Waste Land/The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot. That man loved his quotes. I loved that man because he loved his quotes and it's lyrical in a way that... Oh. How he depicts loneliness. "Coffee Spoons" is a quote from Prufrock ("I have measured out my life in coffee spoons". Is it pretentious? I don't care I have FEELZ for that poem)

- Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostand. The marvel of this comedy can't be fully expressed by words, I love it, I adore it, it made me feel better with myself as an owner of an important nose.

- Macbeth/Othello/Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare. I majored in English Lit and I couldn't leave the Bard outside. I can't choose between these three, and choosing only three was difficult. I spent once 3/4 of an hour in an exam only speaking of the first three lines of Othello and I could do it again, ask me about it. :)))))

- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. IT IS THE BEST THING EVER I love the Arthurian Cycle and this little thing is just... AAAAAAH. Gawain is a bisexual icon (it's not me headcanoning, he smooches both men and women, it's him. YOU GO GAWAIN). Yes I have deep feelings for the movie as well, Dev Patel we're not worthy of you.

I am leaving outside a lot of thing that I will remember in ten minutes and cry profusely about, yes. Also I am containing myself over fangirling about poetry too much because you won't hear the end of it otherwise, there are some things of Sylvia Plath and Auden and Yeats and Maya Angelou that just melt my little dark heart, but this is already far too long...

Also in this house we stan that Bob Dylan earned his Nobel Prize, fuck you Alessandro Baricco.

[paganchristian]

I feel like a puzzle half-put-together, like this puzzle we did long ago.  But now we’ve finished it.  We’ve given that puzzle away.  But now we do puzzles all the time, me and my daughter.  It’s one of the patient things that calm me down and lift me up, that she loves to do and always asks me to do, and I always say yes.  The world doesn’t seem to like half-put-together puzzles unless they’re a game with clearly defined rules and pieces which will predictably fit and make the picture you want.  Or something they like, even if it’s a surprise that you get at the end of the puzzle, like some puzzle types of games.  

A never-ending puzzle, with missing pieces, that might never be found, not be clearly easily recognizable to many or most even when done?  The world doesn’t like that so much, and that is how I feel.  It’s how my spirit, heart, soul, mind, body and life all feel.  A work in progress.  Maybe only finished in the afterlife, the afterworld. 

Anyway, these days with my daughter, we put together puzzles again and again and after they are put together they decorate the floors for a little while, before we put them up then do another one and in a few months or maybe weeks, we might do the same puzzle again.  I am not bored with it as I would have once been.  Of course we don’t just put together puzzles all day.  But I never knew how much I could enjoy them.  

It’s but one of the things that we do, so calming of things we often do, simple things, very early childhood type things.  She is very smart and does things for her age range but hasn’t ever lost the magic of early childhood, because she never wanted to and always has enjoyed it and I never tried to push her to let go of it or get rid of those old toys and books and games.   

There is something very calming, orderly, sweet, gentle, cute, and fun and imaginative and silly and loving in so much of things that are made for early childhood, things that are lost in the things of older childhood and adulthood, to a great extent.  And in the stories are certain kinds of really important examples of lessons, wisdom, symbol, intuition, and psychology, relationships, spirit, thinking outside the box, life lessons and wisdom encapsulated in the most simple, memorable, and imaginative and beautiful symbols,... These types of things in the books and stories, and show and characters, games, songs, poetry, and themes of early childhood ... often are very unique and not found much in other places, that I have seen.

Oftentimes in the rush for more complexity, more intellectualism and elaborate plot and advanced ideas, so much of the more important and useful, memorable wisdom seems to be lost, in books for older children and adults, in my perception of it. It sometimes feels like that for religion too.  In the rush to categorize, to define, to control, to predict, to manage people, lives, feelings, minds, hearts and souls, then we limit.  

Well not all limits are bad, but beyond the need for order and harmony, balance and direction, sometimes limits go far beyond what they need or should do, and start to judge, confine, assume unfair or unnecessary, exaggerated, all-or-nothing, overgeneralized ideas, fearful, narrow, avoidant, judgmental, repressive... All of the kinds of psychological mechanisms that can control and deny and repress any sort of uncertainty and unpleasantry in life.  We do these things in our own lives and psyches, and we also do this in religion and other institutionalized forms of limits, rules, order and control.  Depending on how far it goes, and how far outside the rules someone’s real life needs to be, it might work: Tthese rules might be able to work without too much pain.  

But depending on how one interprets and inflicts the rules (inflicts was the word that came to me, but I guess enforces would make mores sense, but inflicts, yes, it often feels like that for me in some cases), depending on how one interprets and applies the rules, where there is any uncertainty and leeway, or space between or privacy to assimilate and work through the rules in one’s own life and mind, and not just be under the continual scrutiny of the authority over you,... Depending on how much freedom, flexibility, independence, or how much judgment, harshness, fear, dogma and drilling you with ideas, social isolation or scorn or worse to punish you if you don’t follow,... 

Depending on this and that, will determine how these rules and limits feel and act in daily life. It’s different for different people, and it’s different depending on how it’s applied.  To me anymore, many of the religious rules and limits are often totally unneeded and restrictive and regressive, repressive, numbing, dissociating my mind, heart and body, and if not outright harmful and very destructive.  I have tried to follow them, but that is what I keep on running into.  

They try to say, just if you just subjugate your will then you will be eventually transformed but I haven’t been able to because it felt like impending self-destruction and like impending mental breakdown.  I know what I’m talking about.  I have had mental breakdowns before due to religious self-indoctrination.  It never got better for years, and left me so lost for years.  It added nothing useful to my life except for sympathy for those who are going through what I went through and the wisdom and clarity about the warning signs of that whole cycle of disorder and how to avoid it again next time (which I have managed to do, getting better and better each breakdown at preventing it being so bad next time and hope this time I will finally avoid any breakdown whatsoever).  And so when I saw that felt like where it was all heading, I could see that I had to stop that cycle.  

(As an aside, I am not sure if breakdown is the exact word or that I mean the technical definition of mental breakdown but basically I became totally unable to function well at all, depressed, anxious, obsessed, miserable, for months on end, and sometimes for years,  more generally years I think (with some breaks in the storm that felt really great, but it made it hard to tell just where the boundaries were between breakdown and functionality and if a high wave was significant and real or more just a wave of confusion that felt good but was a side effect of a much greater disorder.  Even the worst storms have silver linings and so on)...  So yes, it went on for years after the initial break from order and balance and stability.  Maybe it’s more emotional breakdown, I don’t know, not really well-versed in psychological terms). 

But anyway, I am really beginning to think that so many of the religious rules and limits in this path I’m drawn to, ...  many of these rules it seems were created by people who wanted to preserve a good order but took that need to define and order things too far, just like a person who obsessively controls details of their lives that have nothing to do with real order and harmony but those rules and order make them feel like they have control over their personal universe.  Like someone who has to alphabetize their spice cabinets and cds and books, color code their clothes closet, etc.  I don’t have nay problem with people doing things like that if they work, for them, but when religious people make this complex code of behavior and say you must do all this or you will go to Hell that is too far and it feels to me like what they did but they did it all in the name of God, saying it was God’s will for these rules to be followed.  God’s rules.  I don’t believe it. Not with the way some of the rules and limits look and feel to me when I try so hard to follow them. 

[clarenecessities]

5/1/17

son i have just had the most delightful day of my got damn life. i know a daily clare post where i’m not just complaining about my life in unnecessary detail is unusual but honestly i just had a swell time

we had language class this morning & admittedly i did ask way too many questions and tell a girl she was pretty bc i have no filter when i’m tired (she is pretty, it was just a weird time to say it)  but i learned a whole bunch! sean has been good with like, maidin mhaith and such but most of it is in one ear and out the other (except conjugation, which is blessedly simple) but we have a new teacher up from teelin & she has us repeat stuff like, excessively. it’s actually pretty reassuring. icr what she was having us chant but at one point we were just going in like gregorian style.

only complaint about anna (the new teacher) is that her accent is different from sean’s so she says ‘dh’ as a [Ghy] instead of a [dJ] so simple shit like “god” and “second” is absolutely fucked. i’m hoping she’ll give us some leeway bc i learned from the Horslips if we’re being quite honest. she’s really adorable though--she taught us how to say we were tired (thank god; a sentence i can use) and she was like miming falling asleep. Ta.. tuirseach oram, i think? she didn’t spell it for us but sean said she’ll teach me on wednesday how to spell everything so i’m flying blind for a while.

we went up the cliffs to look at the napoleon-watch tower--it was pretty chill but the journey nearly killed me. between classes i went up to the store & got some deodorant and a popsicle-thing (it sucked, it was like unsweetened frozen orange juice) and the deodorant here is weird it’s all either spray on or roll-on liquid, so it feels like you’ve just put mosquito repellent on your armpits lmao. anyway yeah it was about four miles but it was a little too steep for a malnourished cripple such as myself to tackle on pepsi & popsicle alone. only fell once though, and saw a load of sheep. the girl who i inadvertently complimented taught me about flowers (i asked the name for harebell because i’d forgotten it, and then i was like “hey what’s this one! what’s this one) which made me feel better bc i’d been a bit worried i’d made her uncomfortable. she was singing a song from the last unicorn at one point & we ended up gushing about that for a bit.

up at the top, when we got to the tower, a small parade of our classmates attempted to scale the side & get up to the door (about ten feet) while our guide was distracted--he hadn’t told us not to do it, he just went back for stragglers and didn’t see. we were all sort of standing around speculating & saying it looked like reasonable holds but nobody really wanted to try after the hike, except, cue hunter, the oft-pseudo-offensive manchild i grow less fond of every day (yesterday he was saying sauron was the good guy & like while it was clearly to ‘troll’ people he was also saying some straight up fascist shit in his too-well-assembled arguments). anyway hunter got up onto the pile of rocks, reached the handholds, and immediately surrendered, saying he’d do it the day he could do two chinups. next up was ben, who was volunteered by a few of us because he’s tall and relatively strong--he also got his hands in the holds, but retired immediately on the basis of being too lazy to actually haul himself up. third was chris, who (if you ask me) saw it as a sort of challenge and just went through the effort to show off, which was what hunter was trying to do but couldn’t back up. frankly i’d have been more impressed if i wasn’t a bit leery of chris--he’s not said anything bad to me, he just has a very condescending vibe that i find Incredibly Irritating.

hmm but then we looked out over the cliffs, and our guide told us a story about a sea stack called “the devil’s dick” and we found our way back down about an hour after it was supposed to have taken. idt he was counting on so many of us being so slow, but he had about five of us lagging for various immutable reasons.

class was supposed to start up again at 7 but we’d only gotten down the mountain at about 6, so i decided to forgo the half hour line for the chipper & grab something from the shop (ultimately some pound cake, bc i’m so healthy). outside the shop, who should turn up, but the black cat i’ve been trying to impress for three days!! she was waiting outside the cafe for food (despite having already been fed) so she didn’t run away, but she wouldn’t let me pet her until ashley--one of the workers i met yesterday--came out to smoke, and sort of.. cat-vouched for me? the cat was wary but she clicked to it, and since she’s the one feeding it i think it trusts her opinion heheh. she advised me not to pet it since it was probably covered in fleas but i was like God Himself cannot stop me from petting this cat.

it was wonderful, she just laid down and rusted in the sun, and she looked so happy and peaceful. i hope this means she’ll let me pet her in the future bc i think i love her

she went off back to the shop after a while, so i headed back down the road for class & ran into kelly and matt waiting for their chipper food, and they were like “hey come hang” which i was thrilled to accept. kelly may be the only one who understands how incredible the cat situation was heheh. we decided to call her heather--kelly had been considering matilda but she’s saving that for her own black cat. chris came out the pub & joined us around then, and he and kelly have this sort of pseudo-aggressive banter going where like they’re both clearly not crazy about each other but neither is offended so much as annoyed, and they play it off like a comedic rivalry. it’s actually an interesting dynamic lmao--it’s like the ways that people cope with each other & the things we’ll do automatically you know? interesting.

ben and adrionna came up around then, i think they’d been in the pub too, and they were sweet as always. adrionna and i talked some more about the last unicorn, but were sidetracked by the arrival of: another cat. This one’s a tuxedo tom with crusty eyes and dandruff but he’s so sweet, he’s so good. he was clearly angling to get some of kelly and matt’s fish and chips, but i didn’t mind. we didn’t name him bc we weren’t sure if he was the one named tinkerbell or if it was the other black and white cat, who lives up by our cottages. 

we had to head back down bc class was supposed to start at seven, only come to find out it was seven thirty now, so we just sat out front and waited. the black and white cat who may or may not be named tinkerbell made a brief appearance, but took off down a sheep field before i could approach her. on the way down kelly and i went over our beeves w people, which is probably the oldest and fastest bonding method known to man--we agree on people for the most part, which isn’t too surprising given our mutual affinities for cats & communism

while we were sitting out front we were blessed by a visit from--get this--a fourth cat. at first i thought it was heather bc it’s also black with green eyes, but as it got nearer it was clearer it wasn’t. he’s a tom, older, bigger than her, with a square jaw and less rust in his coat but much more in his purr. we decided to call him gorse to keep up the theme. there’s some speculation that he’s heather’s father, as she’s still quite young, but i expect we’ll find out. if the crusty-eyed potential-tinkerbell isn’t in fact a tom, they may be the mother, and then heather and smaller-potential-tinkerbell would make good sense as their offspring. a black and white cat and a black cat birthing a black and white kitten and a black kitten? almost poetic, in a way.

evening class was awesome, not the least of which because i’d gotten to pet three cats by that point. we had a professor out from galway who’s co-writing a book with sean about joe heaney, and he’s an o’leary himself (well; an o laoire) so i kept joking he was my grandson (sean was the only one who laughed but it may have been pity). he talked for a long while about folklore and living traditions, and bealoideas and etymology and poetry--he recited the Planter’s Daughter, which i’d never heard before--it’s really good tbh. he also said at one point that folklore was sort of viewed as the domain of “slightly deranged maiden aunts” & i was like finally, a calling for me!

we learned the first few stanzas of a song--it was really nice because he took us through the lyrics talking first, instead of jumping right to singing like sean (yes we learn it faster, but we learn it wrong bc we don’t know what we’re saying). as i was looking over the lyrics i realized ONE of the words looked FAMILIAR--a gconra chlair. i was like hey,,,,, that can’t mean what i think it means can it, so i flipped it over and the translation was “coffin”.

heheh so i asked him about it and i was, in fact, right--it’s a coffin of boards. a wooden coffin, really, a poetic device, but there it is, folks--the etymological origin of my name put to practical use!

my first time seeing it in a sentence and it’s about a coffin. what’s better than that honestly

he also told me there’s a different pronunciation of “gconra” down in Cork (i had mentioned my people were from Cork (he laughed and said mine too--i told him they were the same people but tbqh i don’t think he heard me)), so whereas in Galway they’d say it like “groan-rah” in Cork it’d be “G-cone-ah”

so of course, me being the tremendous nerd i am, i asked him about cnudanai, which i happened o have written on the back of my notebook (see: tremendous nerd) and he taught me the cork pronunciation as a counter to sean’s donegal/connemara blend of “croo-dah-nai”. in Cork it’s “c‘noe-daw-nai” like the word canoe’s been truncated. good shit grandson. good shit.

mm and aftter that i just came on back up to the house! we got off at 9:30 so i’ve been slacking off since then tbh. i got a bit of planning done on the hike for my spooky fic, but i’ve not written it down yet. got weirdly sidetracked by fanart of inuyasha’s parents haha

but now it’s 1 am here so i’m out. pray for my muscles to heal miraculously in the night, please