May, Catalina:
June, The Outer Banks:
June. I discovered Sybille Bedford. “Jigsaw” – “Tender is the night” from a child’s point of view:
To me she said (in front of me, rather than to me; most of the things she told about herself came out that way), Never marry to run away from something.
Even better, “A Legacy”. So much for the Belle Epoch. The world of the Merzes, Von Heldens, and the Sigmundshofens is so artificial that realism is not appropriate. Hence the conversational not chronological presentation. Also, striking, are the fantastic animals – Julius’s chimps, and Francesca’s circus donkey, whose trick brings their world to an end.
I also discovered Machado De Assis’ “The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas” (translated by Flora Thomson-DeVeaux). Superior to Diderot, and the other followers of Laurence Sterne. Perhaps even Sterne:
It’s a pity about the nonsense. The man is still leaning over the page with a glass in his right eye, entirely devoted to the noble and grim undertaking of deciphering the nonsensical element. He has promised himself that he will write a brief article in which he recounts finding the book and discovering the sublime meaning, if there is any, behind that obscure phrase. In the end he discovers nothing of the sort and contents himself with possession. He closes the book, examines it, reexamines it, goes over to the window, and shows it to the sun. The only copy! Just then, a Caesar or a Cromwell passes by beneath his window, on the road to power. He shrugs, closes the window, stretches out in his hammock, and leafs through the book slowly, lovingly, sip by sip … The only copy!
Since mid-June. My favorite painting: Katie Herzog’s Arroyo Seco Regional Branch Library (Ketamine) circa 2014. Monet plus Howard Hodgkin:
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