New review: Daniel Hahn on "The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation", in 𝐼𝑓 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝐵𝑒 𝑀𝑎𝑔𝑖𝑐 www.complete-review.com/reviews/tran...

Contents page of Denise Riley's 'Impersonal Passion: Language as Affect'

The contents page of Denise Riley's 'Impersonal Passion: Language as Affect' suggests an ideal companion to follow James Elkins' brilliant 'A Short Introduction to Anneliese' (what words do to us and fail to do). It was either that or a cover-to-cover reading of Fowler's (still tempting).

BBC Four - Krapp's Last Tape Harold Pinter stars in Samuel Beckett's acclaimed study of mortality and memory.

Harold Pinter in Krapp's Last Tape on BBC4 this evening at 9pm, followed by a programme about Beckett. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b...

Cover image of Hans Haider’s biography (in German) of Friederike Mayröcker.

What chances a translation into English of Hans Haider’s forthcoming biography of Friederike Mayröcker? @wordkunst.bsky.social

‘Writing to A.R. Ammons in 1972, Bloom said, “I’m not an artist or a critic, or a hybrid of the two, but something older and less, a reader.”’

[From Henry Oliver, The Common Reader’s latest email.]

Philip II of Macedonia asked Sparta (region of Laconia) whether he should come as friend or foe.

The reply was ‘Neither.’

He sent another message, ‘If I invade Laconia, I shall turn you out.’

The Spartans replied with a single word:

‘If.’

Immense Thomas Mann riches ahead. The (fabulous) John Woods translations getting the Penguin Classics treatment, a full set of new translations from Oxford Classics AND a new translation of Magic Mountain by Susan Bernofsky.

Thought-Whelmed

Reading James Elkins, A Short Introduction to Anneliese, Unamed Press. It is the second volume of Five Strange Languages. Elkins explains, 'You can read each book by itself. They are entirely independent of each other. Each is different, with its own style, mood, and stories',…

Alex Caldiero: Memorial Essay Working to keep Alex close, I wrote this for a Canadian journal of poetry and poetics: periodicities. Seeing it posted today, I remember Alex sending letters to Rilke, Mallarme, Baudelaire, and oth…

Scott Abbott's beautiful tribute to his friend, the poet Alex Caldiero.
wp.me/p2VlSS-2KU

“This was the moment I longed for every day. Settling at a heavy inn table, thawing and tingling.”

Starting in deep midwinter snow “A Time Of Gifts” is instantly magical and somehow innocent and pre-lapsarian.

Paddy Leigh-Fermor arrives at a German inn. And settles down to think.

James Elkins: “A Short Introduction to Anneliese: the fascination and insanity of complex books. Begins with a 200 page rant. . . . At its center is a hundred-page chapter in which Anneliese talks about long books.”

A Short Introduction to Anneliese by James Elkins. Vol. II of Five Strange Languages.

Easter plans.

Larkin’s ‘Coming’

Reminded of Larkin’s poem ‘Coming’ today with the longer, lighter Spring evening

Eleanor of Aquitaine, innit

Ite domum saturae, venit Hesperus, ite capellae.

The Late Arrival

“SHE COMBS HER HAIR as one combs that of the dead: she carries the blue shard under her shirt. She carries the world shard on a string. She knows the words, but only smiles. She mixes her smile in the cup with the wine: you have to drink it, to be in the world. You are the image the shard shows to her, when in contemplation she leans over this life.” Memory Rose into Threshold Speech Paul Celan Translation Pierre Joris

Celan in the late and early hours.

My aunt's copy of 'Story of O'.

When you look back on the works that have moved you, you find that they have always been written out of some kind of necessity. There's something calling out to you, some human call, that makes you want to listen to the work. In the end, it probably has very little to do with literature. Paul Auster

“The sheaves refuse my bonds. In this infinite, unanimous dissonance, each ear of corn, each drop of blood, speaks its language and goes its way. The torch, which lights the abyss, which seals it up, is itself an abyss.”

— Jacques Dupin

(from “Lichens,” tr. Paul Auster)

Pascal Quignard in an interview (2020):

“We do not know where the word ‘literature’ comes from. I love infinitely that there are two words whose etymology is entirely unknown: *eros* and *literature*. I love that words emerge from the night like comets.”

Two new installments in the @Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature, published by @oxunipress.bsky.social Bi-lingual editions (Mandarin/English on facing pages) covering 3,000 years of Sinitic literatures. #literatureintranslation #chineseliteratureintranslation

'Blackbirds & Ravens' contemporary ceramic sculpture by Kathleen Sukiennik

Edward Gorey and His Githerments He took all of his obsessions and made them into art

tinyurl.com/49mdr2yu

I shall. Bassett on the way.

My reading-against-the-grain phase!

Hogarth edition (1959) of Laurie Lee's 'Cider With Rosie'

Another pastoral English classic, paired well with 'Cold Comfort Farm', though Lee is sincere where Gibbons is subversive.

Thank you.

This painting depicts Vilhelm Hammershøi's sister Anna, who was two years his junior. It is one of the earliest known works by him of a figure viewed from behind. The picture created a sensation when it was first exhibited in 1885.

Stella Gibbon's 'Cold Comfort Farm'. Penguin Books edition (2020)

Stella Gibbons prose is genuinely accomplished. A bit of an outlier for me, but it is very good at what it does. Wonderful control. I'll be rereading, I imagine.

Line-drawing illustration from a mid-20th century book: a stout man in a bowler hat stands with his back to the viewer, facing a surprised-looking woman. Two men observe from behind. Caption reads: "M. Boissonade softened for an instant. Then he congealed again."

M. Boissonade.