There is one bright spot at the back, at the beginning of life, and afterwards all becomes blacker and blacker and proceeds more rapidly—in inverse ratio to the square of the distance from death. — Leo Tolstoy, “The Death of Ivan Illych” Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Literature
Prolific Authors
George Murray, a poet and co-editor of the literary blog Bookninja.com, sees the near-annual release of a new Stephen King novel as ‘the literary equivalent of watching a skinny Japanese dude scarf down 100 hot dogs in an eating contest; you are kind of grossed out, but gotta hand it to him.’ Murray harbors a unique theory about what distinguishes a genre writer like King from a so-called serious artist like Joyce Carol Oates. ‘It seems with Oates the hotdog eater is a performance artist commenting on the nature of consumption and American hegemony,’ Murray avers. ‘With King it’s just a guy eating 100 hot dogs, then looking like he’s going to die of nitrate poisoning.’ — CBC.ca, “Automated Storyteller” Read more →
Gatsby 2005
Fitzgerald had to kill off his own famous striver because, to the author, Gatsby represented a dying American dream based on making it the hard way. But no such grim fate awaits today’s little Gatsbys. When they peer out at the universe, they don’t see a green dock light blinking from an unbridgeable distance where the Establishment folk live. This is the age of the red camera light, where everyone arrives sooner or later, if only for a moment, and nobody ever dies of ambition or shame. — The Wall Street Journal, “Gatsby’s Heirs” Read more →
Dying at the Right Time
[James] Dean died before he could fail, before he lost his hair or his boyish figure, before he grew up. — Donald Spoto, Rebel: The Life and Legend of James Dean One must discontinue being feasted upon when one tasteth best; that is known by those who want to be long loved. — Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra Many die too late, and some die too early. Yet strange soundeth the precept: ‘Die at the right time!’ — Ibid. Read more →
Meet the Writers
Please welcome . . . Anton Chekov! Read more →
The Ephemeral Beauty of the World
Who shall blame him? Who will not secretly rejoice when the hero puts his armour off, and halts by the window and gazes at his wife and son, who, very distant at first, gradually come closer and closer, till lips and book and head are clearly before him, though still lovely and unfamiliar from the intensity of his isolation and the waste of ages and the perishing of the stars, and finally putting his pipe in his pocket and bending his magnificent head before her—who will blame him if he does homage to the beauty of the world? — Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse Read more →
Today’s Text
‘There are forces, Lucius, infinitely more powerful than reason and science.’ ‘Which?’ ‘Ignorance and madness.’ — Anatole France, Thaïs Read more →
Le Hamster est Mort
Bowser died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can’t be sure. (French literature buffs are screaming with laughter right now. Trust me.) I feel bad that we didn’t pay as much attention to him after we got the dog, but I guess that’s why pugs cost $1,000 and hamsters cost six bucks. Read more →
Look Homeward, Angel
. . . a stone, a leaf, an unfound door; of a stone, a leaf, a door. And of all the forgotten faces. Naked and alone we came into exile. In her dark womb we did not know our mother’s face; from the prison of her flesh have we come into the unspeakable and incommunicable prison of this earth. Which of us has known his brother? Which of us has looked into his father’s heart? Which of us has not remained forever prison-pent? Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone? O waste of loss, in the hot mazes, lost, among bright stars on this most weary unbright cinder, lost! Remembering speechlessly, we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When? O lost, and by the wind grieved ghost, come back again. — Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward,… Read more →
What I’m Reading
When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in confederacy against him. — Jonathan Swift I’m reading a great, very funny book called A Confederacy of Dunces, written by John Kennedy Toole in 1963. Unfortunately, Toole could not find anyone willing to publish the book and subsequently killed himself in 1969 at the age of 31. Read more →
Not as Consoling as It Should Have Been
Also, whether I died now or forty years hence, this business of dying had to be got through, inevitably. Still, somehow this line of thought wasn’t as consoling as it should have been . . . — Albert Camus, The Stranger Read more →
A Pat on the Head
We come to work, have lunch, and go home. We goose-step in and goose-step out, change our partners and wander all about, sashay around for a pat on the head, and promenade home till we all drop dead. — Joseph Heller, Something Happened Read more →
Today’s Text
Time passes. Listen. Time passes. . . . — Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood Read more →
A Lot of My Problems
I went over to a floor lamp and pulled the switch, went back to put off the ceiling light, and went across the room again to the chessboard on a card table under the lamp. There was a problem laid out on the board, a six-mover. I couldn’t solve it, like a lot of my problems. — Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep Read more →
Hideously Uncomfortable
I was making myself hideously uncomfortable by not narrowing my attention to details of life which were immediately important, and by refusing to believe what my neighbors believed. I am better now. Word of honor: I am better now. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Breakfast of Champions Read more →
Dead Poets
For after all Humboldt did what poets in crass America are supposed to do. He chased ruin and death even harder than he had chased women. He blew his talent and his health and reached home, the grave, in a dusty slide. He plowed himself under. Okay. So did Edgar Allan Poe, picked out of the Baltimore gutter. And Hart Crane over the side of a ship. And Jarrell falling in front of a car. And poor John Berryman jumping from a bridge. For some reason this awfulness is peculiarly appreciated by business and technological America. The country is proud of its dead poets. It takes terrific satisfaction in the poets’ testimony that the USA is too tough, too big, too much, too rugged, that American reality is overpowering. And to be a poet is a school thing, a skirt thing, a church thing. The weakness of the spiritual powers… Read more →
Wholesome Authority
Then there were the Romans — whose greatness was probably due to the wholesome authority exercised by the head of a family over all its members. Some Romans had even killed their children; this was going too far, but then the Romans were not Christians and knew no better. — Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh Read more →
Celebrity Interviews Send Me Into a Homicidal Rage
Every once in a while, my wife is flipping channels and on comes one of these celebrity interviews . . . Read more →
Today’s Text
But now isn’t simply now. Now is also a cold reminder: one whole day later than yesterday, one year later than last year. Every now is labeled with its date, rendering all past nows obsolete, until—later or sooner—perhaps—no, not perhaps—quite certainly: it will come. — Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man Read more →
Pursuit
A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: ‘There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.’ — F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby That we pursue something passionately does not always mean that we really want it or have a special aptitude for it. Often, the thing we pursue most passionately is but a substitute for the one thing we really want and cannot have. It is usually safe to predict that the fulfillment of an excessively cherished desire is not likely to still our nagging anxiety. In every passionate pursuit, the pursuit counts more than the object pursued. — Bruce Lee, Tao of Jeet Kune Do Read more →