Weather

This is the weather the cuckoo likes,
                   And so do I;
When showers betumble the chestnut spikes,
                   And nestlings fly;
And the little brown nightingale bills his best,
And they sit outside at "The Traveller's Rest",
And maids come forth sprig-muslin drest,
And citizens dream of the south and west,
                    And so do I.

This is the weather the shepherd shuns,
                    And so do I;
When beeches drip in browns and duns,
                    And thresh, and ply;
And hill-hid tides throb, throe on thoe,
And meadow rivulets overflow,
And drops on gate-bars hang in a row,
And rooks in families homeward go,
                    And so do I.

~ Thomas Hardy (June 1848 - Jan. 11, 1928)  English novelist, poet.


"It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs." ~ Thomas Hardy

https://www.womensmarch.com/event-details/  On Jan. 21, 2017 women marched on Washington.

 

Maureen Jennings, keynote speaker, Authors' Book Fair 2016 Port Dover

 

 

TOPIC:  Henri J.M. Nouwen (1932 - 1996) Dutch theologian, writer.

Quotations Henri Nouwen.

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.  The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."

Note:  Henri J.M. Nouwen is the topic of our Third Thursday readings this month.

"When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressive creature.  He becomes interesting to other people.  He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and opens ways for a better understanding.  Where those who are not artists are trying to close the book, he opens it and shows there are still more pages possible."
~ Robert Henri, The Art Spirit,

~ Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, The Putnam Publishing Group, 1989

"On one occasion when Dylan Thomas had been drinking and talking freely for some time, he suddenly stopped.  "Somebody's boring me,"  he said.  "I think it's me."*

No one appeared bored in The Neat L'l Bookshop last month when the Third Thursday group discussed the Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas.  In fact, we have scheduled Part II for the third Thursday in November.
Clip our ad in The Haldimand Press (Oct. 1) outlining upcoming events.

* THE LITTLE, BROWN BOOK OF Anecdotes, Clifton Fadiman General Editor. 

British Author, Harold Acton,* was asked to perform at a Conservative Garden Fete.  He decided to recite [T. S. Eliot's] The Waste Land from beginning to end.  "His audience's good manners were severely tested, as this dirge for a godless civilization, delivered in Harold Acton's rich, resounding voice, swept irresistible above their heads;  and one or two old ladies, who were alarmed and horrified but thought that the reciter had such a 'nice, kind face,' rather than hurt the young man's feelings by getting up and leaving openly, were obliged to sink to their knees and creep away on all fours."

*(July 5, 1904 - February 27, 1994)


THE LITTLE, BROWN BOOK OF Anecdotes, Clifton Fadiman.

"All of us are better when we're loved."

~ No Great Mischief, Alistair MacLeod

(1936 - 2014)

 

"There are a great many opinions in this world, and a good half of them are professed by people who have never been in trouble."

~ Canadian writer, Mavis Gallant (August 1922 - February, 2014)
The Harper Book of Quotations, edited by Robert I. Fitzhenry. HarperCollins, 1993.

 

Mavis Gallant (August 11, 1922 - February 18, 2014)

Master of the short Story

 

Mavis Gallant, Canadian author who seldom gave interviews spent much of her writing years in Paris, France where she died at age ninety-one.

Best known for her short stories, Gallant wrote:

"There is something I keep wanting to say about reading short stories.  I am doing it now, because I may never have another occasion.  Stories are not chapters of novels.  They should not be read one after another, as if they were meant to follow along.  Read one.  Shut the book.  Read something else.  Stories can wait." *

~ *Preface of The Selected Stories of MAVIS GALLANT, McClelland & Stewart Inc., 1996. 

 

 



 

 

Smile for Today ~

"I have no desire to be equal to man.  I prefer to maintain my superiority."
~ L.M. Montgomery, Author of Anne of Green Gables.

[Quoted by her son Chester Montgomery in The Story of L. M. Montgomery by Hilda M. Ridley, 1973.

"If a man understands one woman he should leave it at that."
~Bob Edwards, Publisher The Eye Opener.

[The Wit and wisdom of Bob Edwards, 1976.]

"Literature is strewn with the wreckage of those who have minded beyond reason the opinion of others."

~ Virginia Woolf (Jan. 25, 1882 - March 28, 1941) British writer

[Think Spring! lbw]

Jane Austen ~ "lived through an eventful period in English andEuropean history, and her own life was also eventful and resonant with the interaction of personalities within and without her own family circle.  For her, people mattered more than art, family more than literature.
When a friend whom she was to visit asked her what books she was going to bring with her, she received the following typical retort:

You distress me cruelly by your request about books;  I cannot think of any to bring with me, nor have I any idea of our wanting them.  I come to you to be talked to, not to read or hear reading.  I can do that at home;..."

[Letter to Martha Lloyd, 12 November 1800]

~ Jane Austen, Brian Wilks, Galley Press, 1988.

Jane Austen (1775 - 1817) English novelist.

"I propose that we use the term "koob,"  book spelt backwards, to describe [junk reading]... I've sold a lot of koobs in my day and plan to continue to do so, but I do respect books and I think a distinction must be made."

~ Jack McClelland (1922 - 2004) President of McClelland & Stewart, interviewed in 1973, quoted by James King in Jack:  A Life with Writers, The Story of Jack McClelland (1999)

"When I started out as a scribbler, something like fifty years ago, you could fit all of Canada's quality writers into a Volkswagen and still have room to pick up a hitchhiker.  These happy days we could just about fill a bus."

~ Mordecai Richler (Jan. 27, 1931 - July 3, 2001) Canadian novelist, essayist, screenwriter, quoted in the National Post, Dec. 11, 1999.

Smile For Today ~  Peter C. Newman's description of Canadian writing in the fifties.

"...the status of Canadian writers ranked somewhere between taxidermists and rat exterminators.  Their works ~ often concerning the mating habits of beavers, the memoirs of forlorn women braving life on the frontier, or the history of the North-West Mounted Police ~ were relegated to a section labelled 'CANADIANA' at the back of the library, quite a festive word for such a dreary collection.  'CANADIANA' was located between other sluggish sections such as 'CALLIGRAPHY' and 'CANNIBALISM,' ensuring that readers seldom ventured into those nether regions.  Groping through those dark shelves, I managed to read all of Hugh MacLennan, Donald Creighton, and Bruce Hutchison, even if my sense of national identity was not yet fully developed."

~ Peter C. Newman, Canadian author, journalist. (b. May 10, 1921) Here Be Dragons/ Telling Tales of People, Passion and Power, McClelland & Stewart Ltd., 2004.

"What a lot of books!  Have you read them all?"

Umberto Eco's Answer:  "...while your jaw stiffens and rivulets of cold sweat trickle down your spine.  In the past I adopted a tone of contemptuous sarcasm 'I haven't read any of them; otherwise, why would I keep them here?'  But this is a dangerous answer because it invites the obvious follow-up: 'And where do you put them after you've read them?'  The best answer is the one always used by Roberto Leydi: 'And more, dear sir, many more,' which freezes the adversary and plunges him into a state of awed admiration.  But I find it merciless and angst-generating.  Now I have fallen back on the riposte: 'No, these are the ones I have to read by the end of the month.  I keep the others in my office,' a reply that on the one hand suggests a sublime ergonomic strategy and on the other leads the visitor to hasten the moment of his departure.'

"The contents of someone's bookcase are part of his history, like an ancestral portrait." ~ Anatole Broyard.

~ Umberto Eco, How to Justify a Private Library, Author of The Name of the Rose.

Authors don't always have it easy ~

Scott Fitzgerald wrote to editor Max Perkins:

Dear Max:

. . .

"My big mistake was in thinking I could possibly deliver this collection for this fall.  I should have known perfectly well that, in debt as I was to the tune of about $12,000 on finishing "Tender," I should have to devote the summer and most of the fall to getting out of it.  My plan was to do my regular work in the daytime and do one story every night, but as it works out, after a good day's work I am so exhausted that I drag out the work on a story to two hours when it should be done in one and go to bed so tired and wrought up, toss around sleepless, and am good for nothing next morning except dictating letters, signing checks, tending to business matters ect; but to work up a creative mood there is nothing doing until about four o'clock in the afternoon."

~ Baltimore, Mayland, November 8, 1934

~ Dear Scott Dear Max/ The Fitzgerald ~ Perkins Correspondence,  Edited by J. Kuehl & J. Bryer.  CASSELL & COMPANY LTD.  1971

Doris Lessing on literary excellence ~

"It is interesting to imagine what our vision of the world would be like had there been no novelists, no storytellers.  Like the dark side of the moon, or the sea floors where fishes still unknown to science live, or reports from unexplored countries where maps said 'Here be monsters'.  Literature makes us all kin, because every tale is a report from people whose differences are only variations on the theme of our humanity.  Without the explorations of writers we would not know them.
"While I read a novel, enjoying all the skills that go with literary excellence - the design, the complexities, the ironies, the insights - I am saying, 'But wait a minute, here's a region of the world (or of society or of psychology) I haven't been in before.'
"If we can say, 'No human behaviour is alien to me', then it is because we know it all from literature."

~ Doris Lessing (Oct. 22, 1919 - Nov. 17, 2012)  English novelist

~ Forward to The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English, Ian Ousby, Cambridge University Press, 1993.

English author Doris Lessing dead at age 94.  Born to British parents in Persia (now Iran) October 22, 1919, Lessing moved with her family to Zimbabwe, South Africa, at age five and lived there until she was twenty-nine.  Moved to England in 1949.
Leaving school at age fourteen she was self-educated from then on.

Lessing has over 55 works to her name having won among many awards the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007 at the age of eighty-eight.  A word for young writers?  Doris advised, "Acquire a tough skin as soon as possible."

Among Lessing's novels:  The Golden Notebook and The Grass is Singing.

Elmore Leonard dead at 87 (Oct. 11, 1925 - Aug. 20, 2013)  American author, screen writer, known for his dark humour, gritty realism, strong dialogue.
"The old neighborhood has changed.  Hurley Brothers Funeral Home is now called Death 'n' Things."*

Well-known for his Ten Rules of Writing, Leonard said that "if it sounds like writing, I rewrite."  "I try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip."

*The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said by Robert Byrne, 1986, Simon & Schuster.

Photo:  Wikipedia