To Read & To Write

Kazuo Ishiguro's "Nocturnes" features five light and entertaining anecdotal stories concerning music and the rocky lives of traveling classic and classical musicians. The characters in each story vary, yet each is a bit of an odd, awkward bird trying to make it in the music world. The book is very enjoyable and would be the perfect read for a flight. I say this because of the various geographies described, though all European, they are also all not shy in taking liberties of opinion on said cultures and their people: a refreshing take. Nocturnes is reflective of the relationships of ordinary people, and their dreams and goals. Though there was some lack of passion here. The passion of the musicians within the stories was dulled by obstructions of frustration and insecurity. In short, the fire within them, that must live on and grow within any musician's heart and soul, was burning them out. Throughout the book there is a pity underlining the text that wasn't ...

Rumi (1207 - 1273), a now much quoted poet, is also an Islamic saint. In The Pocket Rumi , a good amount of his poems and verses are published, and out of these many referenced Christianity: Jesus and even the Virgin Mother. Not in a negative light at all. I do feel it is of importance to note Rumi's Persian and Islamic background. The prophet Muhammad is also mentioned very frequently in his work, which drew me to a closer understanding and appreciation of Islam, without having to open the Koran.  Frankly, it doesn't sit well that a lot of his poetry is not something we might call common humanity or shared human values. Tell me, what historical struggle, what coming together of societal conditions, what political events urges a person such as Rumi towards  love?  Rumi doesn't believe in good and evil, in the moral sense, but he cannot deny his striving towards  goodness . It's in his work, this combining of goodness and love and also, quite differently than t...

I don't think Kate Chopin's intention with her novel, The Awakening, published in 1899, was to shock or entertain. Both reactions indeed took over the masses when the book was published. But Chopin, I believe, meant to teach, meant to illustrate an example. I also do not think that Chopin's main character, Mrs. Edna Pontillier, was one to entertain or one who wanted to. However, Mrs. Pontillier did entertain by way of beginning to perform and act out her life for herself, and herself alone. Her witnesses and acquaintances looked on with curiosity and concern, and love.  Put simply, The Awakening is a novel exploring societal values regarding women during the turn of the 19th century (1899). The lush backdrop of the Grand Isle in Louisiana only compounds the emotional turmoil the protagonist, Mrs. Edna Pontillier, finds herself coping with one oppressive summer. As a married woman with children, Mrs. Pontillier finds it difficult to express the psychological changes...

I don't think I've ever eaten as much while reading a novel as I did while reading Daphne Du Maurier's classic Rebecca, first published in 1923. Classic novel it is. Rightly so. Like the unnamed main character, I bit my by fingernails (my right pinky nail, specifically) down to the quick as I thrust pages onto the next in nervous suspense. Down went my crackers, sandwich, cookies, fried rice, chips, and dip. Down went plenty of tea, and much too much coffee, which is what is allowing me to write at this very moment when it typically is bedtime for me.  To me, Du Maurier has captured in this book not just an excellent story but a superb example of what it may be like to be borne unto the world. A birth into the first part of the 20th century, in Britain, to be sure, but a birth nonetheless. The phrase coming-of-age is much to trite for this novel. The birth is a terrible one, of shock and disbelief. The narrator is a kind of still-born (for lack of a better metapho...