Those who write clearly have readers. Those who write obscurely have commentators.
- Albert Camus
Only a couple of more weeks of April, and already I'm feeling the end-of-semester reading (and writing) crunch, not to mention some books I've just been wanting to read.
Check out four that are topping the list -
1) The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, by Rainer Maria Rilke
Sick in its search of self-awareness, acutely aware of the trauma of modernity, and refreshingly, in a depressing kind of way, poignant - I think I've found my new favorite writer/poet of yore. I've been getting the same feeling I had when I first read Richard Corey by Edwin Arlington Robinson. Published in 1910, it follows Malte, a young Danish nobleman and poet living in Paris, obsessed with death and the deceptiveness of appearances. But aren't we all? The work is semi-biographical, in that Rilke draws from his own childhood and adult years in writing it, which makes the overwhelming sense of anxiety that pervades the book that much more disturbing.
Just a sample of what you'll read...
I don't even know how it is possible for children to get up in the morning, in their bedrooms full of gray-smelling cold, and go to school; who strengthens them, these little hurried skeletons, so that they can run out into the grown-up city, into the gloomy dregs of the night, into the eternal school day, always small, always full of foreboding, always late. I have no conception of the amount of help that is constantly besing used up - p. 213 (trans. Stephen Mitchell)
I prayed to rediscover my childhood, and it has come back, and I feel that it is just as difficult as it used to be, and that growing older has served no purpose at all. - p. 64 (trans. Stephen Mitchell)
2) Fablehaven: Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary, by Brandon Mull
Book IV in the series and bound to make me even angrier than the last three, what with it's name alone being too damn clever and perfect for my liking. Click here to read more about it in an archived post of mine.
3) Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, by David Allen
A nice woman who was very excited about the dozens of pockets built into a lululemon backpack recommended this book to me. I am looking forward to learning more about this crazy "stress-free" concept...must be some newfangled trend.
4) Film Theory & Criticism, edited by Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen
All film theory. All the time. A must-have addition to the library for any film major.
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2 comments:
stick to Fablehaven. The first book sounds like some miserable crap about the human condition that doesn't do any good to brood about. And film theory? Don't you have a walking film library at your side most of the time?
Yeah, reading those brief excerpts of Rilke was like staring into the abyss. A wee bit too intense.
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