Showing posts with label literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label literature. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

A process of discovery

As a writer, I write to see.
If I knew how it would end, I wouldn't write.
It's a process of discovery.


John McGahern  (12 November 1934 – 30 March 2006)

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Beers & Books (418) – By the Lake

Oh, a book by John that I don't know yet?
So I asked my bookseller to order it for me in the USA.
A few days later I held ‘By the Lake’ in my hands,
opened it and started reading.
‘The morning was clear. There was no wind on the lake.’
A déjà vu? I know that one, don't I?
And right:
Exactly the beginning of ‘That They May Face The Rising Sun’.
Vintage International had just changed the title.

John McGahern (12 November 1934 – 30 March 2006)
 

Sunday, February 02, 2025

Pitch 'n' Putt with Joyce & Beckett

James Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941)

Samuel Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989)

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Beers & Books (416) – Parlavà Suite and others

Suite de Parlavà
seguit de
Algú que espera
&
Llibre de les solituds


Miquel Martí i Pol  (19 March 1929 – 11 November 2003)

Monday, January 20, 2025

Beers & Books (414) – Geschichte des Prinzen Biribinker

The Story of Prince Biribinker
is considered the first literary fairy tale
to be published in the German language (1769).
Glorious. ;-)

Christoph Martin Wieland (5 September 1733 – 20 January 1813)

Tuesday, January 07, 2025

Beers & Books (410) Parlavà Suite & others

Suite de Parlavà (1991)
&
Algú que espera (1990)
&
Llibre de les solituds (1997)
 
Miquel Martí i Pol  (19 March 1929 – 11 November 2003)*

 * It looks as if non of Martí i Pol's work has yet been translated into English.

Sunday, December 15, 2024

Edna O'Brien

I wish Dame Edna could enjoy celebrating her 94th today. Perhaps she would tell us that her new book will be about an insane and megalomaniacal criminal who - you could laugh if it didn't make you want to vomit - has been elected President of the allegedly united States of America.

 

Without intending to belittle other writers, for me Edna O'Brien, together with John McGahern, is the greatest Irish author of the past decades. Both had in common their books were banned in Ireland.
Above's interview from 1976 is on her trilogy "The Country Girls".

 

 The interview above's taken in 2012.

And this one after release of ‘The Little Red Chairs’ (2015)

Enjoy!

Edna O'Brien (15 December 1930 – 27 July 2024)

Friday, December 13, 2024

Beat the drum, Heinrich!*

I have never seen an ass
who talked like a human being,
but I have met many human beings
who talked like asses.

Heinrich Heine (13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856)

* Heine's Doctrine

Friday, October 18, 2024