Lesson Learned
I had this whole ridiculous battle going on in my head over whether it makes more sense to take books out of the library or to buy them. Obviously the library is cheaper, more environmentally friendly, and leaves one with a hell of a lot less to carry when one moves. Plus I generally don't reread books. Even so, I do tend to reference the bits I've underlined in books, which I obviously can't do with those that I've borrowed. In case you were wondering, that whole Kindle epidemic is out of the question at present for me. I imagine the devices take the fun out of reading.
My first experiment with this whole library book thing involved Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller. For about the first two days, I went around with a little notebook, taking down my thoughts as I read. And then I got lazy - mostly turned off by the prospect of juggling one more item on the train during my commutes, which generally comprise about 90% of my recreational reading time. So I decided to just remember the most striking parts of the book and write them down later. As it turns out, later is now, and I can only find one part that touched me. One. So much for that plan. So the part I most enjoyed in that book, which, knowing my taste is probably famous for being everyone's favorite part, is as follows:
"A woman is sitting on a dais above an immense carven desk; she has a snake around her neck. The entire room is lined with books and strange fish swimming in colored globes; there are maps and charts on the wall, maps of Paris before the plague, maps of the antique world, of Knossos and Carthage, of Carthage before and after the salting. In the corner of the room I see an iron bedstead and on it a corpse is lying; the woman gets up wearily, removes the corpse from the bed and absent-mindedly throws it out the window. She returns to the huge carven desk, takes a goldfish from the bow and swallows it. Slowly the room begins to revolve and one by one the continents slide into the sea; only the woman is left, but her body is a mass of geography. I lean out the window and the Eiffel Tower is fizzing champagne; it is built entirely of numbers and shrouded in black lace. The sewers are gurgling furiously. There are nothing but roofs everywhere, laid out with excreble geometric cunning."
That's all for today
My first experiment with this whole library book thing involved Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller. For about the first two days, I went around with a little notebook, taking down my thoughts as I read. And then I got lazy - mostly turned off by the prospect of juggling one more item on the train during my commutes, which generally comprise about 90% of my recreational reading time. So I decided to just remember the most striking parts of the book and write them down later. As it turns out, later is now, and I can only find one part that touched me. One. So much for that plan. So the part I most enjoyed in that book, which, knowing my taste is probably famous for being everyone's favorite part, is as follows:
"A woman is sitting on a dais above an immense carven desk; she has a snake around her neck. The entire room is lined with books and strange fish swimming in colored globes; there are maps and charts on the wall, maps of Paris before the plague, maps of the antique world, of Knossos and Carthage, of Carthage before and after the salting. In the corner of the room I see an iron bedstead and on it a corpse is lying; the woman gets up wearily, removes the corpse from the bed and absent-mindedly throws it out the window. She returns to the huge carven desk, takes a goldfish from the bow and swallows it. Slowly the room begins to revolve and one by one the continents slide into the sea; only the woman is left, but her body is a mass of geography. I lean out the window and the Eiffel Tower is fizzing champagne; it is built entirely of numbers and shrouded in black lace. The sewers are gurgling furiously. There are nothing but roofs everywhere, laid out with excreble geometric cunning."
That's all for today