Hurrah Hurrah!
Nov. 8th, 2020 10:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunabee341. Congratulations, President-Elect Biden and Vice-President-Elect Harris!
2.
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I really liked this. It's a very languid book. It's beautifully written and full of lush description.
It's a mystery of sorts, and that mystery is a pleasure to watch unfold.
Despite the details of the mystery, this is a very hopeful and optimistic book for me. It's a book in which people figure out who they are and are allowed to keep their identity, even if it is not what others would have wished for them. It's a book in which the protagonist chooses to be kind with no reason to be. It's a book in which the human and the natural world are interconnected and interdependent to the mutual benefit and delight of both. It's also a book in which no doors stay closed, and I think I like that about it best.
View all my reviews
3.
The Wild Iris by Louise Glück
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This collection of poems is comprised of very short poems; the online database through which I read this book gives the word count of each poem, and most are around 126 words. The poems are written from the perspective of nature (flowers, trees), the poet (or a persona), and the divine. Themes include the grief endemic to human life, the interconnectivity of man and nature, and writing.
My favorite poem is the first, titular poem:
At the end of my suffering
there was a door.
Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.
Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.
It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.
Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little. And what I took to be
birds darting in low shrubs.
You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:
from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure seawater.
View all my reviews
2.
Piranesi by Susanna ClarkeMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I really liked this. It's a very languid book. It's beautifully written and full of lush description.
It's a mystery of sorts, and that mystery is a pleasure to watch unfold.
Despite the details of the mystery, this is a very hopeful and optimistic book for me. It's a book in which people figure out who they are and are allowed to keep their identity, even if it is not what others would have wished for them. It's a book in which the protagonist chooses to be kind with no reason to be. It's a book in which the human and the natural world are interconnected and interdependent to the mutual benefit and delight of both. It's also a book in which no doors stay closed, and I think I like that about it best.
View all my reviews
3.
The Wild Iris by Louise GlückMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This collection of poems is comprised of very short poems; the online database through which I read this book gives the word count of each poem, and most are around 126 words. The poems are written from the perspective of nature (flowers, trees), the poet (or a persona), and the divine. Themes include the grief endemic to human life, the interconnectivity of man and nature, and writing.
My favorite poem is the first, titular poem:
At the end of my suffering
there was a door.
Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.
Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.
It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.
Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little. And what I took to be
birds darting in low shrubs.
You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:
from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure seawater.
View all my reviews
no subject
Date: 2020-11-08 03:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-08 09:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-08 07:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-08 09:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-09 11:37 am (UTC)And I'm glad you enjoyed Piranesi. I do want to finish it.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-10 01:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-09 08:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-10 01:10 pm (UTC)Me too!
no subject
Date: 2020-12-30 11:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-31 01:34 pm (UTC)I've really enjoyed this year of focus on poetry.