recent readings
I finished reading two good books recently.
Crocodile Street by Bruno Schultz is the portrait of a boy's family (Bruno's) and the Polish town on the brink of Americanization/capitalization in which they live. A snapshot of a world lost. It contains a couple of the most beautiful moments I've ever read.
The road became steep, the horse began to slip on it and pulled the creaking cab only with an effort. I was happy. My lungs soaked up the blissful spring in the air, the freshness of the snow and stars. Before the horse's breast the rampart of white snowy foam grew higher and higher, and it could hardly wade through that pure fresh mass. At last we stopped. I got out of the cab. The horse was panting, hanging its head. I hugged its head to my breast and saw that there were tears in its large eyes. I noticed a round black wound on its belly. "Why did you not tell me?" I whispered, crying. "My dearest, I did it for you," the horse said and became very small, like a wooden toy.
Kon Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl is another type of story. Not as beautifully written, but inspiring and adventurous. It's the true story of a handful of Norweigans who went to Peru, built a raft out of balsa logs according to sketches by conquestadors of old peruvian rafts, and floated across the Pacific to Polenesia to support a theory that it was possible that Polenesia was originally settled by a now extinct fair-skinned, red-haired, bearded, sea-faring, sun-worshipping, pre-Incan tribe from Peru.
I imagine there is a lot of universality in a rafting trip. So many moments echoed memories I have of my own.
Crocodile Street by Bruno Schultz is the portrait of a boy's family (Bruno's) and the Polish town on the brink of Americanization/capitalization in which they live. A snapshot of a world lost. It contains a couple of the most beautiful moments I've ever read.
The road became steep, the horse began to slip on it and pulled the creaking cab only with an effort. I was happy. My lungs soaked up the blissful spring in the air, the freshness of the snow and stars. Before the horse's breast the rampart of white snowy foam grew higher and higher, and it could hardly wade through that pure fresh mass. At last we stopped. I got out of the cab. The horse was panting, hanging its head. I hugged its head to my breast and saw that there were tears in its large eyes. I noticed a round black wound on its belly. "Why did you not tell me?" I whispered, crying. "My dearest, I did it for you," the horse said and became very small, like a wooden toy.
Kon Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl is another type of story. Not as beautifully written, but inspiring and adventurous. It's the true story of a handful of Norweigans who went to Peru, built a raft out of balsa logs according to sketches by conquestadors of old peruvian rafts, and floated across the Pacific to Polenesia to support a theory that it was possible that Polenesia was originally settled by a now extinct fair-skinned, red-haired, bearded, sea-faring, sun-worshipping, pre-Incan tribe from Peru.
I imagine there is a lot of universality in a rafting trip. So many moments echoed memories I have of my own.