Category Archives: Quotations
In Search Of
… In the actual history of the human race “traditional masculinity” as a single coherent category simply does not exist. To pluck only Western examples, there is no single “traditional” model that can encompass strong, silent types and romantic poets, … Continue reading
Colette
static01.nyt.com/images/2018/10/03/arts/03colette1/merlin_143890539_b04f8a07-099a-46e2-9af4-3de2e7185111-articleLarge.jpg Another great strength of Chéri is its domestic accuracy, especially about the shifting sands between two people alone in a room, the vanity and careless cruelty, the weird dance between love and clarity – “You never laugh except unkindly … Continue reading
Traduced in Translation
m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BOTc1MjY0ODA4MF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMjQyNTQ3NjM@._V1_.jpg In the film, set in Mexico City in the 1970s, the actors speak Mexican Spanish and the indigenous Mixtec language. For that Spanish, Netflix added subtitles in Castilian, Spain’s main dialect, for the release in that country. On Wednesday, … Continue reading
Old English “Kennings”
s3.amazonaws.com/libapps/accounts/35417/images/sutton_hoo_bigger.jpg There are ways of expressing feeling in the Old English kennings that do not exist in the formal English of today. Even if I were to dream up some delicious new portmanteau here — some melding of “history,” “poignant” … Continue reading
Spot On
i.pinimg.com/236x/af/0a/5e/af0a5e1f54ce7bd39bdacda274b78d97–iris-murdoch-irish-people.jpg Dame Iris Murdoch had been a philosophy don at Oxford before she became a novelist, and as far as I was concerned, her philosophy of life was spot on, as someone in a British novel might say. (Susan Scarf … Continue reading
Muriel Spark
Perhaps it is that particular literary quality, her poet’s rigorous understanding of what another modernist, D. H. Lawrence, called “the jump of words along the line”—when set against the easy-to-read “Miss Jean Brodie,” with its mass-market appeal—that has confused her … Continue reading
*Affectedly Quaint
Following Dr. [Donald] Knuth’s doctrine helps to ward off moronry. He is known for introducing the notion of “literate programming,” emphasizing the importance of writing code that is readable by humans as well as computers — a notion that nowadays … Continue reading
