favourites poems, fragments of novel, short stories

[hannah_arendt]

Do you have your favourite fragment of poems, novels which you can read endlessly?

If it comes to me:

1) "My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. So don't talk of our separation again: it is impracticable"
(E. Bronte, "Wuthering Heights")

2) "Dying--you wouldn't do that to a cat.

For what is a cat to do

in an empty apartment?

Climb up the walls?

Brush up against the furniture?

Nothing here seems changed,

and yet something has changed.

Nothing has been moved,

and yet there's more room.

And in the evenings the lamp is not on.



One hears footsteps on the stairs,

but they're not the same.

Neither is the hand

that puts a fish on the plate.



Something here isn't starting

at its usual time.

Something here isn't happening

as it should.

Somebody has been here and has been,

and then has suddenly disappeared

and now is stubbornly absent.



All the closets have been scanned

and all the shelves run through.

Slipping under the carpet and checking came to nothing.

The rule has even been broken and all the papers scattered.

What else is there to do?

Sleep and wait.



Just let him come back,

let him show up.

Then he'll find out

that you don't do that to a cat.

Going toward him

faking reluctance,

slowly,

on very offended paws.

And no jumping, purring at first."
(W. Szymborska, "Cat in a empty apartment")

[ladderandbucket]

I know this is rather predictable of me, but...

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28)

[hannah_arendt]

I have recently decided to come back to reading The Master I read "Macbeath" many times at secondary school. Shakespeare was very important for polish writers of Romanticism. Now I would like to find something new in it or in other dramas.

[Corona]

Lately I've been reading to some short stories by F. Kafka and I'm really liking them, especially some of the shortest ones.
Here are some: http://www.herzogbr.net/kafka/beforethelaw.htm
http://zork.net/~patty/pattyland/kaf...s/gracchus.htm
http://www.kafka-online.info/an-imperial-message.html
http://www.kafka-online.info/in-the-penal-colony.html (a longer one)

[hannah_arendt]

Have you read "The Trial"?

I read few of them in german and it was really very interesting experience.

[Corona]

Yeah, that and The Castle, although I should read again the latter.

[hannah_arendt]

Why did you choose Kafka?

[Corona]

Because I think his short tales works a lot and are very incisive;
I would tell his most powerful works tend to be opened, never solved, and the shortest ones give a precise idea of how Kafka's fragmentary style reflects a particular view of the world. It's very impressive he's able to "create" worlds within the space of sometimes less than a page!

[kelby_lake]

I do love the wrestling scene in Women in Love. More erotic than anything in Lady C's Lover.

Also, the entirety of Chapter 1 of The Return of the Native: http://www.online-literature.com/har...-the-native/2/

[hannah_arendt]

Because I think his short tales works a lot and are very incisive;
I would tell his most powerful works tend to be opened, never solved, and the shortest ones give a precise idea of how Kafka's fragmentary style reflects a particular view of the world. It's very impressive he's able to "create" worlds within the space of sometimes less than a page!

It`s very difficult to write something intense and at the same time short. I ma reading "Game of the thrones: and it is too long. It could be long but also should have more essence. There aren`t many writers who have the ability you have mentioned.

[kev67]

I posted this on a similar thread on a different forum:

In general the cows were milked as they presented themselves, without fancy or choice. But certain cows will show a fondness for a particular pair of hands, sometimes carrying this predilection so far as to refuse to stand at all except to their favourite, the pail of a stranger being unceremoniously kicked over. It was Dairyman Crick's rule to insist on breaking down these partialities and aversions by constant interchange, since otherwise, in the event of a milkman or maid going away from the dairy, he was placed in a difficulty. The maids' private aims, however, were the reverse of the dairyman's rule, the daily selection by each damsel of the eight or ten cows to which she had grown accustomed rendering the operation on their willing udders surprising easy and effortless.
Tess, like her compeers, soon discovered which of the cows had a preference for her style of manipulation, and her fingers having become delicate from the long domiciliary imprisonments to which she had subjected herself at intervals during the last two or three years, she would have been glad to meet the milchers' views in this respect. Out of the whole ninety-five there were eight in particular--Dumpling, Fancy, Lofty, Mist, Old Pretty, Young Pretty, Tidy, and Loud--who, though the teats of one or two were as hard as carrots, gave down to her with a readiness that made her work on them a mere touch of the fingers. Knowing, however, the dairyman's wish, she endeavoured conscientiously to take the animals just as they came, expecting the very hard yielders which she could not yet manage.
But she soon found a curious correspondence between the ostensibly chance position of the cows and her wishes in this matter, till she felt that their order could not be the result of accident. The dairyman's pupil had lent a hand in getting the cows together of late, and at the fifth or sixth time she turned her eyes, as she rested against the cow, full of sly inquiry upon him.
"Mr Clare, you have ranged the cows!" she said, blushing; and in making the accusation symptoms of a smile gently lifted her upper lip in spite of her, so as to show the tips of her teeth, the lower lip remaining severely still.
"Well, it makes no difference," said he. "You will always be here to milk them."
"Do you think so? I hope I shall! But I don't know."

Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy, ch 19

[hannah_arendt]

Kev67, thanks for answering I have to admit that I haven`t read "Tess..." yet but I am going to do it soon.

[Gregory Samsa]

Two of my favourite poems by Tranströmer:


Fire Graffiti

Throughout those dismal months my life was only sparked alight
when I made love to you.
As the firefly ignites and fades, ignites and fades, we follow the flashes
of its flight in the dark among the olive trees.

Throughout those dismal months, my soul sat slumped and lifeless
but my body walked to yours.
The night sky was lowing.
We milked the cosmos secretly, and survived.




After a Death

Once there was a shock
that left behind a long, shimmering comet tail.
It keeps us inside. It makes the TV pictures snowy.
It settles in cold drops on the telephone wires.

One can still go slowly on skis in the winter sun
through brush where a few leaves hang on.
They resemble pages torn from old telephone directories.
Names swallowed by the cold.

It is still beautiful to hear the heart beat
but often the shadow seems more real than the body.
The samurai looks insignificant
beside his armor of black dragon scales.

[Snowqueen]

My favourite lines from East of Eden.

I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents. Some you can see, misshapen and horrible, with huge heads or tiny bodies. . . . And just as there are physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters born? The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?

[hannah_arendt]

Thank you all for answering I wish you all Merry Christmas and Happy New Year