Quotations Various # 2b - The sea

Ah, the sea: my literary mistress. I can't help it, I can't control myself. A lovely passage like this one from Shusaku Endo's "The Samurai" will make me stray from many other fine literary passages:

"He was seeing the great ocean for the first time. There was not a trace of land of land, not even the silhouette of an island. Waves collided, jostled, and sent up war cries like a melee of countless warriors. The prow of the ship thrust like a spear into the gray sky, and the hull, shooting up a tall spout of water, seemed about to plunge into a valley in the ocean, then lurched up once again.

"The samurai's eyes swam. He could scarcely catch his breath in the gusts of wind that pounded his brow. To the east, an ocean of billowing waves. To the west , an ocean of clamouring waves. To the south and to the north, ocean as far as he could see. For the first time in his life the samurai understood the vastness of the sea. Compared to this ocean, his own marshland was little more than a single tiny speck. He groaned at the immensity of it all."

Quotations Various # 2

"As the samurai and his men cut wood, snow grazed their rustic outfits, brushed against their faces and hands, then melted away as if to underscore the brevity of life." ~ Shusaku Endo, "The Samurai"

The first page, the third paragraph, the fifth line, the third paragraph, the forty-first to seventieth words of the novel.

You've just begun a new novel. You're expecting, perhaps, a little scene-setting, maybe some character introductions; your eyes are really only sliding over the surface of the story so far. Then you encounter the line above.

You almost drop the book. Instead, you close the book and put it down slowly.

If you are a writer, you pause and reevaluate if you should continue to write. You would be lucky to come up with such a stunning line, and would probably not have the audacity to put it so far forward in your story. The pause will seem longer than it is.

But then you will see that the feeling of inadequate talent falling like snow over the idea of your writing doesn't have to cool your motivation. You will feel that if you keep writing down your lines, and then write some more, and continue writing some after that, eventually you will write a line that makes you almost drop your pen. Pause, set your pen down slowly. Reread the line a couple of times.

Then pick up your pen and try to write some more.

Season's Readings, Summer 08-Fall 08

It is astounding to me how much I haven't read in the past seasons. By a combination of not having the time (the brewing and birth of our third child; a teaching career, which is inherently parasitic to one's time in the early years of its practice) and not taking the time (the pervasiveness of other interests: video games, film, worthwhile television (Lost, Mad Men, Heroes, The Wire, The Office), I have only managed to finish the following works.

Summer

"Pincher Martin" by William Golding. This was better in retrospect that during its reading. While I was engaged in it I was confused most of the time. The inner workings of the character were hard to follow comprehensively, and it wasn't until the final "twist" of the story at its end, that I appreciated the story as a whole.

"Roughing It" I started this in the Summer of 07, and didn't finish it until Summer 08 - as I took the myriad anecdotes a piece at a time. It was excellent, as Mark Twain is always excellent. The story of the old dog at Mono Lake had me howling with laughter. Though his mining camp chapters were given a darker hue than he infused them with from my experiences watching "Deadwood".

"Born Standing Up" by Steve Martin. Despite my never having been too great a fan of Steve Martin's stand up, I enjoyed this book's chronicling of Martin's career from inception to over-ripening. I loved everything about his chapter at Disneyland - sharing in his perception of beauty and attention to detail in the park; the story of his simply riding up on his bike at getting a job there. Fantastic.

Fall

While I was waiting for the audiobook of the next Aubrey-Maturin book to come in from the library, I browsed through and picked up "The Mistress of Magic" by Marion Zimmer Bradley. I enjoyed this lush retelling of the Arthur legend from a woman's perspective - but not enough that I postpone my progress through O'Brian's naval adventures to continue Bradley's series. Perhaps later in 2009...

Patrick O'Brian's book, "The Letter of Marque" came in, and was just as good as his other tales. It only suffered from that fact that the library didn't have the audiobook version recorded by Patrick Tull.

Then, again waiting for the next book in the series to come in - and as it had become football season - I picked up John Grisham's "Playing for Pizza" which was an entertaining departure from his law thrillers.

I then finished my Fall reading with David Sedaris' "When You are Engulfed in Flames". While I missed hearing about his family more in these new essays, he was at his usual hilarious/insightful best; and the titular essay was exquisite.