2 books I've been working on a long time
Today I finished both Ficciones, a collection of Borges short stories, and The Complete Poems: Anne Sexton.
I thought I would love Borges. I really, really did. And it was good, he's brilliant. But it wasn't like falling in love. There wasn't that deep swooning, those electric sparks of connection. It's hard for me to explain exactly how it made me feel, besides peculiar and awed, I suppose, to a certain degree. Like I said, he seems to be fairly brilliant in translation, which says a lot. I was a bit sad that I am not currently proficient enough in Spanish to read the stories as they were originally written.
On the Amazon page, under editorial reviews Mary Park writes: "Reading Jorge Luis Borges is an experience akin to having the top of one's head removed for repairs. First comes the unfamiliar breeze tickling your cerebral cortex; then disorientation, even mild discomfort; and finally, the sense that the world has been irrevocably altered--and in this case, rendered infinitely more complex."
I think that explains it pretty well. It's complex and a bit uncomfortable and invasive in a way. Maybe a bit like Pale Fire?
Before, I really dug Anne Sexton. But now she feels like a part of me.
This text includes all seven of her published books (To Bedlam and Part Way Back; All My Pretty Ones; Live or Die; Love Poems; Transformations; The Book of Folly; The Death Notebooks; The Awful Rowing Toward God), two posthumously published books (45 Mercy Street and Words For Doctor Y), as well as half a dozen previously unpublished poems.
I posted about Anne Sexton fairly recently, over the summer, when I was a bit more than half-way through the book, and commented that I seem to be drawn to the confessional poets. I think I remarked then that it was predictable and typical of me.
But Anne is different. At least, she is to me now. I'm not sure I could make it through over 600 pages of Berryman's poetry, or Ginsberg's, or Plath's.
Morrissey said that "(Anne Sexton) died for you, you know. And for me." but quite frankly I am, as of late, entirely unable to view suicide as something romantic or selfless and this sentiment rings shallow. Don't tell me she died for us. Her corpse left us no poetry.
This is relevant, I feel.
I thought I would love Borges. I really, really did. And it was good, he's brilliant. But it wasn't like falling in love. There wasn't that deep swooning, those electric sparks of connection. It's hard for me to explain exactly how it made me feel, besides peculiar and awed, I suppose, to a certain degree. Like I said, he seems to be fairly brilliant in translation, which says a lot. I was a bit sad that I am not currently proficient enough in Spanish to read the stories as they were originally written.
On the Amazon page, under editorial reviews Mary Park writes: "Reading Jorge Luis Borges is an experience akin to having the top of one's head removed for repairs. First comes the unfamiliar breeze tickling your cerebral cortex; then disorientation, even mild discomfort; and finally, the sense that the world has been irrevocably altered--and in this case, rendered infinitely more complex."
I think that explains it pretty well. It's complex and a bit uncomfortable and invasive in a way. Maybe a bit like Pale Fire?
Before, I really dug Anne Sexton. But now she feels like a part of me.
This text includes all seven of her published books (To Bedlam and Part Way Back; All My Pretty Ones; Live or Die; Love Poems; Transformations; The Book of Folly; The Death Notebooks; The Awful Rowing Toward God), two posthumously published books (45 Mercy Street and Words For Doctor Y), as well as half a dozen previously unpublished poems.
I posted about Anne Sexton fairly recently, over the summer, when I was a bit more than half-way through the book, and commented that I seem to be drawn to the confessional poets. I think I remarked then that it was predictable and typical of me.
But Anne is different. At least, she is to me now. I'm not sure I could make it through over 600 pages of Berryman's poetry, or Ginsberg's, or Plath's.
Morrissey said that "(Anne Sexton) died for you, you know. And for me." but quite frankly I am, as of late, entirely unable to view suicide as something romantic or selfless and this sentiment rings shallow. Don't tell me she died for us. Her corpse left us no poetry.
This is relevant, I feel.
