Tag Archives: literature

Little Women 2019: A Short Review

Posted on February 6, 2020 by

Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women, experienced both enchantment and wretched poverty in her early years. Her father was an intellectual and member of the Transcendentalist movement, which meant that little Louisa met Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo … Continue reading →

Posted in The Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

“Blessed is he who leaves” – “Flights” by Olga Tokarczuk

Posted on July 8, 2018 by

This year’s Man Booker international prize went to a Polish author, Olga Tokarczuk for Flights. It is an absorbing tale, or rather a collection of tales, devoted to the nomad in everyone of us. More than that, a large part … Continue reading →

Posted in Novel review, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Fernando Pessoa – Weaver of the Soul

Posted on December 10, 2017 by

“Weavers of despair, let us weave only shrouds – white shrouds for the dreams we never dreamed, black shrouds for the days when we die, grey shrouds for the gestures we only dreamed of, imperial purple shrouds for our futile … Continue reading →

Posted in Fernando Pessoa, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

The Swelling Sound of Beauty Arriving: The Writing of Elena Ferrante

Posted on April 27, 2017 by

Two girls grow up in an impoverished neighbourhood in Naples. To merely describe them as friends would be an understatement, for they share a ferocious bond. It all started while they were playing with their dolls alongside each other:  “We … Continue reading →

Posted in Elena Ferrante, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Like the Rainbow on the Waterfall: the Mystical Aura of Consumption

Posted on March 29, 2016 by

While the fourteenth century was ravaged by the Black Death, the nineteenth century belonged to tuberculosis, or the White Death, a disease much more insidious and widespread. John Keats died of it at the age of twenty-six, and so did … Continue reading →

Posted in Tuberculosis | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Shakespeare and Goethe on Love: from Despair to Hope

Posted on February 14, 2016 by

“She had a wildness in her eyes and into it I plunged.” Goethe, “Sorrows of Young Werther” In January 1778 Christel von Lassberg drowned herself in the river Ilm, the reason most probably being unrequited love. A copy of Goethe’s … Continue reading →

Posted in love, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Stamped on the Underside of My Memory

Posted on December 26, 2015 by

“Every aurate woman I have loved in my life, and I use the word loved in its widest sense, has left her impression on me, as the old gods of creation are said to have left their thumbprints on the … Continue reading →

Posted in Quotations, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

“The Starry Night” by Anne Sexton

Posted on July 5, 2015 by

“The town does not exist except where one black-haired tree slips up like a drowned woman into the hot sky. The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars. Oh starry starry night! This is how I want to … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Salammbô

Posted on April 30, 2015 by

I.“Her hair, which was powdered with violet sand, and combined into the form of a tower, after the fashion of the Chanaanite maidens, added to her height. Tresses of pearls were fastened to her temples, and fell to the corners … Continue reading →

Posted in Salammbo | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Reflections on Don Quixote: The Universe of Fiction

Posted on April 13, 2015 by

“Idle Reader: Without my swearing to it, you can believe that I would like this book, the child of my understanding, to be the most beautiful, the most brilliant, and the most discreet that anyone could imagine. … I wanted … Continue reading →

Posted in Don Quixote | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 19 Comments