For the past three weeks we've been privileged to read the contributions of some highly talented, interesting members of Readers and Book Lovers. But because we don't have a contributing diarist today, we'll have an open forum instead. I'm happy to announce that someone has kindly volunteered for next Friday, September 13 (oh, how I love that), but we need contributors for September 20 and and 27 as well. Please do step up to the plate so "Books That Changed My Life" won't shrivel up and die!
To show you how easy it is, here’s the template—just three paragraphs and you’re home free! Just tell me which week you want and your name shall be entered into the Sacred Logbook.
In the first paragraph, all you need to do is introduce the title of the book and the author, and mention the circumstances in which you encountered it—did you buy it, borrow it, or receive it as a gift? How old were you? Were you at school still or working?
In the second paragraph, you could provide a quote from the book, or briefly describe the contents, or tell something about the author. If it’s a classic and has been reproduced on line as part of The Gutenberg Project, you could provide a link. Or if there’s an entry in Wikipedia about it, you could link to that.
In the third paragraph, you would state how reading the book changed your life—by making you aware of politics, or history, or seeing the world beyond your own cosmos of home, family, friends, and school, or thinking about things in a new way.
You will need to add at least three tags to the bottom of your diary: Readers and Book Lovers, R&BLers, and Books That Changed My Life. Feel free to add more, according to your subject.
So which book changed YOUR life?
Fifty Shades of Grey? REALLY? Oh, wait, no, perhaps you really meant
The Call of the Wild or
Into the Wild. You can talk about any book, even
The Upanishads.
Please kosmail me and tell me you’ll do a diary in September and October so this series won’t fall flat on its face!
It is so very cool this September morning that for breakfast we're having hot apple cider and oatmeal-walnut cookies that I made myself. The cider is from an organic farm, naturally, and the cookies are delicious if I do say it that made them (I used butter instead of the shortening the recipe called for). Oh, and there's a pyramid of sweet little clementines from sunny California in the corner over there, so help yourself!
Goodness knows why the subject of death has been occupying my mind recently, and this was true even before a possible strike on Syria captured the headlines. Said occupation may have had something to do with the terrific poem Limelite quoted when we discussed favorite love poems several weeks ago. "It's both eulogy and love poem," she said.
Funeral Blues
by W. H. Auden
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
Who could fail to be moved by this? It's a cri de coeur, love mixed with agony.
My own favorite passage is from Swinburne's poem, The Garden of Proserpine, the musings of a world-weary Pagan. Rather strangely, I find this, the penultimate stanza, comforting:
From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
Of course, it doesn't have to be a poem about death: it can be a short story, if you like. My own favorite is "
The Wolves of Cernogratz" by the inestimable Saki. The idea of hundreds of wolves creeping up to the castle to sing one's
death music is very appealing.
Now I've told you my favorites, why don't you tell us yours? Would it be a poem by Christina Rossetti or John Keats? Shakespeare? We're all listening, so open your beautiful lips and speak!
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