YOU CAN CHECK ANY CHINESE DICTIONARY, there’s no word for romance. We say ‘Lo Man’, copying the English pronunciation. What the fuck use was a word like romance to me anyway? There wasn’t much of it about in China, and Beijing was the least romantic place in the whole universe. ‘Eat first, talk later,’ as [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Literature'
Chinese Romance – “Twenty fragments of a ravenous youth” – Xiaolu Guo
January 19th, 2012 · No Comments · Chinese, Love, Quotes
Tags:China·love·Practicality·Romance
So Why Didn’t an Australian Kill Hitler? – “Fromelles” – Patrick Lindsay
January 16th, 2012 · No Comments · Anzac, Australian, History, War, WW1, WW2
The Luftwaffe bombed (Fromelles) on 27 May 1940, destroying some buildings when British ammunition trucks parked there were hit and exploded. The following day the Germans occupied the town once again. Then things went along uneventfully until 25 June, when France surrendered to the Germans. That very day, Chancellor Adolf Hitler, the former humble lance-corporal [...]
Tags:Anzac·Australian History·History·WW1·WW2
Don’t Forget me Cobber – “Fromelles” – Patrick Lindsay
January 16th, 2012 · No Comments · Anzac, Australian, History, War, WW1
Bean highlights the work of one of the rescuers, 40 year old Victorian farmer, Sergeant Simon Fraser of the 57th Battalion, and quotes from a letter Fraser later wrote him: “It was no light work getting in with a heavy weight on you back, especially if he had a broken leg or arm and no [...]
Hatred and History – “Disgrace” – J.M. Coetzee
December 13th, 2011 · No Comments · Africa, African, Crime, Fiction, History, Literature, Revenge
Halfway home, Lucy, to his surprise, speaks. ‘It was so personal,’ she says. ‘It was done with such personal hatred. That was what stunned me more than anything. The rest was … expected. But why did they hate me so? I had never set eyes on them.’ He waits for more, but there is no [...]
Fathers and Daughters – “Disgrace” – J.M. Coetzee
December 13th, 2011 · No Comments · African, Fiction, Literature, Love
But he is a father, that is his fate, and as a father grows older he turns more and more – it cannot be helped – toward his daughter. She becomes his second salvation, the bride of his youth reborn. No wonder, in fairy-stories, queens try to hound their daughters to their death! He sighs, [...]
True Philosophers – “Cannery Row” – John Steinbeck
November 19th, 2011 · No Comments · Literature, Philosophy, Prose, Writing
Doc said, “Look at them. There are your true philosophers. I think,” he went on, “that Mack and the boys know everything that has ever happened in the world and possibly everything that will happen. I think they survive in this particular world better than other people. In a time when people tear themselves to [...]
Tags:contentment·life·philosophy·prose
A Dying Party – “Cannery Row” – John Steinbeck
November 19th, 2011 · No Comments · Literature, Prose, Writing
No one has studied the psychology of a dying party. It may be raging, howling, boiling, and then a fever sets in and a little silence and then quickly quickly it is gone, the guests go home or go to sleep or wander away to some other affair and they leave a dead body.
The Model T Ford – “Cannery Row” – John Steinbeck
November 19th, 2011 · No Comments · Literature, Prose, Writing
Someone should write an erudite essay on the moral, physical, and esthetic effect of the Model T Ford on the American nation. Two generations of Americans knew more about the Ford coil than the clitoris, about the planetary system of gears than the solar system of stars. With the Model T, part of the concept [...]
The Boiler – “Cannery Row” – John Steinbeck
November 18th, 2011 · No Comments · Literature, Prose, Writing
In April 1932 the boiler at the Hediondo Cannery blew a tube for the third time in two weeks and the board of directors consisting of Mr. Randolph and a stenographer decided that it would be cheaper to buy a new boiler than to have to shut down so often. In time the new boiler [...]
Tags:prose
Doc’s Mind Had No Horizon – “Cannery Row” – John Steinbeck
November 18th, 2011 · No Comments · Humanism, Literature, Philosophy, Prose, Writing
Doc would listen to any kind of nonsense and change it for you to a kind of wisdom. His mind had no horizon—and his sympathy had no warp. He could talk to children, telling them very profound things so that they understood. He lived in a world of wonders, of excitement. He was concupiscent as [...]
