He had a more direct methodHe had a more direct method
“Alexander didn’t torture the Gordian knot when it wouldn’t come untied.” – Lydia Davis, “Kafka Cooks Dinner”
Category: Lit & Crit
There’s a there thereThere’s a there there
“It does not follow that because a mountain appears to take on different shapes from different angles of vision, it has objectively no shape at all or an infinity of shapes.” — E.H. Carr (quoted by Roger Cohen in “Revealing ‘Turkey’s Hidden Past'”)
Or it may scratch and bite and cling to the ceilingOr it may scratch and bite and cling to the ceiling
“A person has other concerns, but at each moment in its life, a cat has only one concern. This is what gives it such perfect balance, and this is why the spectacle of a confused or frightened cat upsets us: we feel both pity and the desire to laugh. It faces the source of danger or confusion and its only recourse is to spit a foul breath out between its mottled gums.” — Lydia Davis, “The Cats in the Prison Recreation Hall”
Not even thesis defenseNot even thesis defense
“Nothing in a graduate degree in art history prepares you for the eloquence of the eraser.” – Adam Gopnik, “Life Studies”
Fingerpaints and doodlesFingerpaints and doodles
“Whatever sense of professional competence we feel in adult life is less the sum of accomplishment than the absence of impossibility: it’s really our relief at no longer having to do things we were never any good at doing in the first place—relief at never again having to dissect a frog or memorize the periodic table. Or having to make a drawing that looks like the thing you’re drawing.” – Adam Gopnik, “Life Studies”
Provocative consistent conjunctionProvocative consistent conjunction
“A plot is the means by which fiction portrays the consequences of actions, but it is not like a pool table; one event never mechanically causes another. In a plot each event provokes other events by making it possible for them to happen–possible but not inevitable, because human beings are always free to choose their response to provocation.” — Edward Mendelson, “The Perils of His Magic Circle” (emphasis in original)
It’s because they know all that is, all that has been, and all that will beIt’s because they know all that is, all that has been, and all that will be
“Without doubt cats are intellectuals who have been, by some mysterious decree of Providence, deprived of the comfort of the word.” — Rebecca West, “Pounce”
And all places are alike to themAnd all places are alike to them
“I have never felt jealous of other women because they were more beautiful than I was, for almost any cat was far more beautiful than either me or them.” — Rebecca West, “Pounce”
Souls on saleSouls on sale
“Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest: indeed, this very pursuit now constitutes whatever remains of our sense of collective purpose. We know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth. We no longer ask of a judicial ruling or a legislative act: Is it good? Is it fair? Is it just? Is it right? Will it help bring about a better society or a better world? Those used to be the political questions, even if they invited no easy answers.” – Tony Judt, “Ill Fares the Land” (emphasis in original)
Here comes another one nowHere comes another one now
“Everything happens to an artist; time is always redeemed, nothing is lost and wonders never cease.” – Muriel Spark, Loitering with Intent
It’s–I dunno–sorta like, mebbe imho, roflmao–or maybe not, but whose to say?It’s–I dunno–sorta like, mebbe imho, roflmao–or maybe not, but whose to say?
“Shoddy prose today bespeaks intellectual insecurity: we speak and write badly because we don’t feel confident in what we think and are reluctant to assert it unambiguously (‘It’s only my opinion…’). Rather than suffering from the onset of ‘newspeak,’ we risk the rise of ‘nospeak.'” — Tony Judt, “Words”
Some write fictionSome write fiction
“Rebellion against fate, the attempt to stop time, to be always young, leads to a kind of death too. For to stop the process of decay is to stop living.” — Ian Buruma, “The Mystery of Female Grace”
All roads lead to RomeAll roads lead to Rome
“The novelist and the historian are seeking the same thing: the truth—not a different truth: the same truth—only they reach it, or try to reach it, by different routes. Whether the event took place in a world now gone to dust, preserved by documents and evaluated by scholarship, or in the imagination, preserved by memory and distilled by the creative process, they both want to tell us how it was: to re-create it, by their separate methods, and make it live again in the world around them.” – Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative (emphasis in original)
They called him “Little Mac”They called him “Little Mac”
“I have done the best I could for my country; to the last I have done my duty as I understand it. That I must have made many mistakes I cannot deny. I do not see any great blunders; but no one can judge of himself. Our consolation must be that we have tried to do what was right.” – Major General George B. McClellan, upon being relieved of command of the Union Army of the Potomac, 1862
Working in the fieldsWorking in the fields
“Whatsoever a man sows, that must he reap, and he not only reaps what he sows but he must reap all he sows. When we plant a seed of good or of evil we are hardly aware how large a tree may grow from it or how much fruit it may bear.” — Wilbur Fisk, Hard Marching Every Day (eds. E. and R. Rosenblatt)
Nowhere to hideNowhere to hide
“One meets all sorts of men in the army, and he often finds himself in a crowd of the very roughest of the human species. But human nature is very much the same everywhere. No matter how ‘rough’ a man may become, or how wicked, he naturally admires the excellent qualities of others, and condemns their faults very much the same as do those more cultivated and virtuous. To be popular with such men, it is only necessary to be unselfish. A selfish man is popular nowhere. His ill nature will creep out in a thousand ways in spite of him, and bring all his virtues into contempt.” – Wilbur Fisk, Hard Marching Every Day (eds. E. and R. Rosenblatt)
The silence of dutyThe silence of duty
“The scenes in a soldier’s life are continually shifting, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse, and we soldiers get to be nearly as indifferent about the matter, and care as little where we go, as a horse cares where his driver may see fit to drive him. And we have just as little voice in the matter as a horse has. One day a soldier may be in his tent comfortable, contented, and happy, and the next day on a march with but few of the world’s comforts and but little cause of contentment except what he finds within himself. A soldier’s time and services are not his own, they belong to the Government which he has sworn to defend, and it is his duty to be ever ready and obey with alacrity whatever the Government calls upon him to do. Sometimes a streak of good luck will turn up to a soldier whether he deserves it or not, and sometimes they won’t turn up though he may deserve it ever so well. It would be easy to mention a great many good boys in the ranks who have been doing duty at the front since the war began, but to whom no soft detail has ever been given, or any particular favors shown.” – Wilbur Fisk, Hard Marching Every Day (eds. E. and R. Rosenblatt)
An uncontrolled experimentAn uncontrolled experiment
“Treat men like brutes and they will become like brutes, but you treat them worse than brutes and there is no telling what they will become.” – Wilbur Fisk, Hard Marching Every Day (eds. E. and R. Rosenblatt)
Physical and moral knowledgePhysical and moral knowledge
“If a man wants to know what it is to have every bone in his body ache with fatigue, every muscle sore and exhausted, and his whole body ready to sink to the ground, let him diet on a common soldier’s fare till he has only the strength that imparts, and then let him shoulder his knapsack, haversack, gun and equipments, and make one of our forced marches, and I will warrant him to be satisfied that the duties of war are stern and severe, whether we march or face the enemy on the field of battle. A fellow feels very much like grumbling at such times as that, and when we march on and on, expecting every minute to halt but still hurrying forward, when every spark of energy seems about to be extinguished, and the last remnant of strength gone, tired, hungry, sick and sore, who blames a soldier if he finds it hard work to suppress thoughts of a quiet home he has left behind him, with its comforts and endearments, and if he sometimes turns his thoughts to himself and wonders if he, as an individual, will ever be compensated for the sacrifice he is making. What if the rebels are whipped, and what if they are not? How does it matter to him? One blunder of General Grant’s may make final victory forever impossible and all our lost toil go for nothing. I tell you some of our hard marches put one’s patriotism severely to the test. It finds out a fellow’s weak points if he has got any, and we don’t claim to be without them.” – Wilbur Fisk, Hard Marching Every Day (eds. E. and R. Rosenblatt)
Spotsylvania, Virginia, May of 1864Spotsylvania, Virginia, May of 1864
“The most singular and obstinate fighting that I have seen during the war, or ever heard or dreamed of in my life, was the fight last Thursday. Hancock had charged and driven the enemy from their breastworks, and from their camps, but the enemy rallied and regained all but the first line of works, and in one place they got a portion of that. The rebels were on one side of the breastwork, and we on the other. We could touch their guns with ours. They would load, jump up and fire into us, and we did the same to them. Almost every shot that was made took effect. Some of our boys would jump clear up on to the breastworks and fire, then down, reload and fire again, until they were themselves picked off. If ancient or modern history contains instances of more determined bravery than was shown there, I can hardly conceive in what way it could have been exhibited. This firing was kept up all day, and till five o’clock next morning, when the enemy retreated. Gen. Russell remarked that it was a regular bull-dog fight; he never saw anything like it before. I visited the place the next morning, and though I have seen horrid scenes since this war commenced, I never saw anything half so bad as that. Our men lay piled one top of another, nearly all shot through the head. There were many among them that I knew well, five from my own company. On the rebel side it was worse than on ours. In some places the men were piled four or five deep, some of whom were still alive. I turned away from that place, glad to escape from such a terrible, sickening sight. I have sometimes hoped, that if I must die while I am a soldier, I should prefer to die on the battle-field, but after looking at such a scene, one cannot help turning away and saying, Any death but that.” – Wilbur Fisk, Hard Marching Every Day (eds. E. and R. Rosenblatt)
Discipline and punishmentDiscipline and punishment
“The band discoursed a dirge-like piece of music, when the prisoners [John Tague and George Blowers] were conducted to their coffins, on which they kneeled, and the guard filed around and took position in front of them, scarcely half a dozen yards distant. A sergeant put a circle around the neck of each, from which was suspended a white object over the breast, as a target for the executioners. The prisoners were not blindfolded, but looked straight into the muzzles of the guns that shot them to death. The guard were divided into two platoons, one firing at one prisoner, and the other platoon firing at the other prisoner, but there was no reserve to be ordered up in case of failure. Blowers had been sick, his head slightly drooped as if oppressed with a terrible sense of the fate he was about to meet. He had requested that he might see his brother in Co. A, but his brother was not there. He had no heart to see the execution, and had been excused from coming. Tague was firm and erect till the last moment, and when the order was given to fire, he fell like a dead weight, his face resting on the ground, and his feet still remaining on the coffin. Blowers fell at the same time. He exclaimed, ‘Oh dear me!’ struggled a moment, and was dead. Immediately our attention was called away by the loud orders of commanding officers, and we marched in columns around the spot where the bodies of the two men were lying just as they fell. God grant that another such punishment may never be needed in the Potomac Army.” — Wilbur Fisk, Hard Marching Every Day (eds. E. and R. Rosenblatt)
Hurry up and waitHurry up and wait
“The duties of a soldier are very unequally divided in regard to time. Some days he may have nothing whatever to do but to pass the time as best he can; and then of a sudden he may be called upon to perform all that his physical powers can possibly accomplish, and often his power of endurance yields to exhaustion, and he is obliged to stop ere his task is completed. These extremes of physical exertion may not accord with the strictest rules of physiology, but they certainly do not conflict with the rules of military life.” – Wilbur Fisk, Hard Marching Every Day (eds. E. and R. Rosenblatt)
The frontiers of languageThe frontiers of language
“See major, see! The domned skillipins skedaddle extinsively—extinsively sir!” – CSA Captain “Old Tarantula” Reilly, Second Manassas, 1862 (quoted in John J. Hennessy’s Return to Bull Run)
The deterministic universeThe deterministic universe
“Everything is the way it is because everything was the way it was. Sometimes I feel ensnared in this, as if no matter what I do, what will come has already been fixed.” — Joanthan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated
Have you heard the one about…?Have you heard the one about…?
“Humorous is the only truthful way to tell a sad story.” – Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated
Illusions of IdentityIllusions of Identity
“Since we live in the heads of those who remember us, we lose control of our lives and become who they want us to be.” – David Eagleman, “Metamorphosis” (from Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives)
Only the young die goodOnly the young die good
“The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.” – Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
Capital depletionCapital depletion
“We never get anything. We are born with all we have and we never learn. We never get anything new. We all start complete.” – Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
A manageable approachA manageable approach
“Life isn’t hard to manage when you’ve nothing to lose.” – Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
No hidden agendaNo hidden agenda
“Everything is on such a clear financial basis in France. It is the simplest country to live in. No one makes things complicated by becoming your friend for any obscure reason. If you want people to like you you have only to spend a little money.” – Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises