Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Realistically

Can someone recommend a book in a way that will reliably produce a therapeutic result? So much of the positive effect of reading is dependent on the right book at the right time.

The book you read is not necessarily the same book I read. I.e., what works for me may not do the same for you. Which is one of the mysteries of the reading process, within the realm of mystical consciousness more than practical application.

Reading becomes background noise for a walk through our memories. We are semiconscious of both and responsive to the amalgamation. Do we cry for the tragedy of the book's characters? No, it is our own tragedy that overwhelms us.

And yet, it is the artistic representation that is often able to speak to and call forth the emotion in a manner of which we are incapable left to our own devices. However, from the evocation we might find a way to utilize our own experience in a way that is also creative, culminating in a domino effect aka inspiration.

Friday, July 18, 2014

Simple literary timeline

http://www.online-literature.com/periods/timeline.php

The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

Perhaps the most notable fact about this novel is that the author is 23 and says its the first of a 7 book series. Though not quite Harry Potter, the protagonist has a readable story.
I especially like the list at the front of the book that lists the varieties of occult/mystical mastery. Including:
Soothsayers
     Aka Seers
          Aka cottabomancer/cryomancer/catoptromancer/axinomancer/bibliomancer/macharomancer/hydromancer/crystalist/cartomancer/cyathomancer/cleromancer/cleidomancer/astragalomancer/aichmomancer/acultomancer
Mediums
     Aka automatiste/psychograpaher
Sensors
     Aka gustant/sniffer/polyglot/whisperer
Augurs
     Aka osteomancer/haematomancer/drymimancer/chiromancer/oculomancer/andropomancer/extispicist/rhabdomancer/pyromancer/halomancer/tasseographer/botamancer/theriomancer/spodomancer/capnomancer/libanomancer/anthomancer/sycomancer/dendromancer/daphnomancer
Guardians
     Aka binder/summoner/necromancer/exorcist
Furies
     Aka sibyl/unreadable/beserker
Jumpers
     Aka dreamwalker/oracle

Categories that would certainly rival True Blood for coopting the occult should HBO decide to run another series in the same vein (pun intended.)

If this is indeed the first of 7, characters will likely flesh out nicely and readers will have a chance to evolve along with our heroine as she saves the world from narrow minds.

Tuesday, July 08, 2014

Marge Piercy's Dance the Eagle to Sleep

There are no people so primitive or poor they did not practice arts: except a thoroughly exploited, colonialized, proletarianized people--thoroughly robbed.

I saw that to survive we had to stop wanting their things and only want what we could give each other.

Power implied subject and object. They needed some way to recognize (for everyone to recognize) that everybody was a subject.

...violence was the pornography of their culture.

Jonathan Lethem's Dissident Gardens

The difficulty in beholding another person was how you stood in your own way.

I'm trying never to live dishonestly and with regrets. Please don't write to me again.

Aphanisis: the dissolving subject's failure to identify, in the face of the world's depredations, with the contours of her own desire.