The beautiful language, the words, this little fragmented short story from James Joyce paints a wintry portrait of a man in love, weathered by his own thoughts, while her, actively living her life through the eyes of “Jamesy”, so painfully, so unrestrained.
Speaking about narration of one’s life, there will always be versions, rumours, tales, traces; some will be on wikipedia, some will be sealed in national security data, but only the each of us will encounter the soul-searching question when nothing from outside could fulfil — what does this life mean? Hours, days, months or decades go by, the battered self stoop to reach the ground we once wanted to leave so badly.
Faber&Faber 90th Anniversary Short Stories Collection provides “Fast Reading for Commuter”, hand picked stories that can offer commuter a calm and soothing time.
The book is entitled The Liar’s Dictionary, meaning whatever the Dictionary is, it belongs to “Liars” — People who are not true to themselves, neither to others — an already devalued identity.
The design of the book brings you back to the age of cassette, A & B, two sides, but upside down. I actually read Pinball, 1973 first, and Hear the Wind Sing. It’s the wrong order, but like life, we all sometimes wish to flip it.
Mary Jean Chan repeats “ark” already twice in the opening poems in Flèche, which reminds me a sentence I contributed to our collective poem — each person a stanza — for the poetry class. It […]
This long excerpt caught my eye in a public book closet near my neighbourhood, and I could not let go of this thin booklet. Having heard of Henry Miller long enough to actually “encounter” him in this way, it makes me wonder, what it at all planned? Does anyone ever try to pick a colour when being hit by the feeling of nostalgia? Don’t go, please, walk with me into this colour —
