As for collecting essays as occasional and disparate as my own, one should really wait until the author is either dead or at least in advanced old age.
(Italo Calvino: Letter to Niccolò Gallo, 27 September 1961)
Para recoger ensayos dispersos e inorgánicos como los míos hay que esperar a la propia muerte o por lo menos a la vejez avanzada.
(Italo Calvino: Carta a Niccolò Gallo, 27 septiembre 1961)
Everything in this book may well seem both to lovers of poetry and to classical scholars an unnecessary gloss upon the Odyssey. In one sense it is, for it is clearly unnecessary to attempt to trace the voyage of Ulysses when millions of people, for thousands of years, have been quite happy to read the Odyssey as if it was only a fable…
I do not think that anything is lost by attempting to find a skeleton – however magnificent the cupboard that hides it. I have seen coral formations disguising the old bones of ships, but I did not feel less amazed by the beauty of the coral just because I had found the timbers and iron frames which the polyps had disguised and decorated.
(Ernle Bradford: Introduction to Ulysses Found)
The serendipity of chance discoveries that bookshops can bring – and the love of the tangible book – are irreplaceable. A bookshop is Aladdin’s cave of chance encounters.
Roger Crowley
Ulysses and his fleet, Aeneas, Empedocles, the Giant Enceladus – ah! who can paint it? I hate my pen for being so incapable.
(Frances Elliot: Diary of an Idle Woman in Sicily)
In 1981, the Italian writer Italo Calvino wrote an essay titled Why Read the Classics?. It’s less than ten entertaining pages, so I recommend you read it if you can lay your hands on it. (It’s been published in a book form, in a collection of his essays, bearing the same title.)
What follows here is the 14 definitions of what classics are as put forward in the essay – 14 definitions worth thinking about:
Continue reading “Why Read the Classics?”
Hace mucho tiempo el escritor argentino, Jorge Luis Borges estaba enseñando literatura inglesa en la universidad de Buenos Aires. Un día dijo a sus estudiantes:
A long time ago the Argentinian writer, Jorge Luis Borges taught English Literature at the University of Buenos Aires. One day he said to his students:
Si Shakespeare les interesa, está bien. Si les resulta tedioso, déjenlo. Shakespeare no ha escrito aún para ustedes. Llegará un día que Shakespeare será digno de ustedes y ustedes serán dignos de Shakespeare, pero mientras tanto no hay que apresurar las cosas.”
(Jorge Luis Borges: Curso de literatura inglesa en la universidad de Buenos Aires)
If Shakespeare interests you, that’s fine. If you find him tedious, leave him. Shakespeare hasn’t yet written for you. The day will come when Shakespeare will be right for you and you will be worthy of Shakespeare, but in the meantime there’s no need to hurry things.
(Profesor Borges: A Course on English Literature)
So often, in the past as well, a visit to a bookshop has cheered me up and reminded me that there are good things in the world.
Vincent Van Gogh: Letter to Theo Van Gogh, 30 October 1877
A menudo, en el pasado también, una visita a la librería me ha animado y me ha recordado que haya cosas buenas en el mundo.
Vincent Van Gogh: Carta a Theo Van Gogh, 30 de octubre de 1877
It is a most wonderful comfort to sit alone beneath a lamp, book spread before you, and commune with someone from the past whom you have never met.
Yoshida Kenko: A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees
(Essays in Idleness)
It was evening when we made our way back to the cove. The sun was setting fire to the headlands west of us, and the sea had become absolutely still. Not even a cat’s-paw trailed across the purple water. The sea was truly like wine to look at. The professors who had decried Homer’s adjective and invented other meanings for it, had never been sailors.
(Ernle Bradford: The Wind Off the Island)
In September 1931, the poet Federico García Lorca made a speech on occasion of the inauguration of the public library in his hometown, Fuente Vaqueros in Granada.
¡Libros! ¡Libros! He aquí una palabra mágica que equivale a decir amor, amor, y que debían los pueblos pedir como piden pan o como anhelan la lluvia para sus sementeras.
(Federico García Lorca: Medio pan y un libro)
Books! Books! Here is a magic word that is equivalent to saying love, love, and what people should ask for like they ask for bread or yearn for rain for their crops.
(Federico García Lorca; Half a Bread and a Book)
There is always room and occasion enough for a true book on any subject; as there is room for more light the brightest day and more rays will not interfere with the first.
(Henry David Thoreau: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers)
Some books have unforgettable First Lines – others have unbeatable endings… (And some have both, with some pretty impressive stuff in between.)
Unos libros tienen inolvidables primeras líneas – otros tienen insuperables finales… (Y algunos tienen los dos, con algo muy impresionante en medio.)
Continue reading “Last Lines (Últimas líneas)”
Some books have unforgettable first lines…
Unos libros tienen inolvidables primeras líneas…
Continue reading “First Lines (Primeras líneas)”
