Doug Bruns

Search for “james joyce”

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

First sentences…

In Books, Literature, Reading, Thinkers, Writers on June 29, 2010 at 6:26 pm

…from a few of my favorite books:

“He awoke, opened his eyes.” The Sheltering Sky, Paul Bowles

“The difference between the Parthenon and the World Trade Center, between a French wine glass and a German beer mug, between Bach and John Philip Sousa, between Sophocles and Shakespeare, between a bicycle and a horse, though explicable by historical moment, necessity, and destiny, is before all a difference of imagination.” The Geography of the Imagination, Guy Davenport

“Life changes fast.” The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion

“They sometimes met on country roads when there were flowers or snow.” Dubin’s Lives, Bernard Malamud

“Standing amid the tan, excited post-Christmas crowd at the Southwest Florida Regional Airport, Rabbit Angstrom has a funny sudden feeling that what he has come to meet, what’s floating in unseen about to land, is not his son Nelson and daughter-in-law Pru and their two children but something more ominous and intimately his: his own death, shaped vaguely like an airplane.”  Rabbit at Rest, John Updike

“The amber light came on.” Blindness, José Saramago

“The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest.” Essays of E.B. White

“I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies.” Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace

“When you write, you lay out a line of words.” The Writing Life, Annie Dillard

“When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only.” Walden, Henry David Thoreau

“Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo….” Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce

…and perhaps the best opening sentence in all of literature:

“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez

, ,

Reading list: 2009

In Books, Literature, Reading on January 10, 2010 at 10:19 am

Here’s what I read last year (2009):

  1. Nothing to be Frightened of, Julian Barnes (Jan 3)
  2. Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates (Jan 10)
  3. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Zen Living (Jan 12)
  4. The English Major, Jim Harrison (Jan 15)
  5. Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, Paul Theroux (Feb 22)
  6. The Reader, Bernard Schlink (Mar 5)
  7. The Soloist, Steve Lopez (Mar 12)
  8. Atmospheric Disturbances, Rivka Galcheon (Mar 22)
  9. Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce (Mar 31)
  10. Digging to America, Anne Tyler (April 9)
  11. Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouck (April 11)
  12. The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery  (April 23)
  13. The Writing Life, Anne Dillard (May 17)
  14. Slouching Toward Bethlehem, Joan Didon (May 26)
  15. The White Album, Joan Didon (May 31)
  16. 2666, Roberto Bolano, (June 26)
  17. Shadow Country, Peter Matthisen (July 13)
  18. Snakeskin Road, James Braziel (July 18)
  19. Self’s Murder, Bernhard Schlink (July 22)
  20. Heroic Measures, Jill Ciment (July 27)
  21. Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, Geoff Dyer (Aug 4)
  22. An Underachiever’s Diary, Benjamin Anustos (Aug 6)
  23. Homer and Langley, E.L. Doctorow (Aug 9)
  24. Under This Unbroken Sky, Benjamin Anustas (Sept 2)
  25. Last Night in Twisted River, John Irving (Sept 21)
  26. This is Water, David Foster Wallace (Sept 25)
  27. The Boy Next Door, Irene Sabatini (Sept 30)
  28. Inherent Vice, Thomas Pynchon (Oct 13)
  29. After the Fire, A Still Small Voice, Evie Wyld (Oct 20)
  30. Supreme Courtship, Christopher Buckley (Oct 28)
  31. Johnny Future, Steve Abee (Nov 3)
  32. The Convalescent, Jessica Anthony (Nov 15)
  33. Manhood for Amateurs, Michael Chabon (Dec 9)
  34. Noah’s Compass, Anne Tyler (Dec 19)

The list is shorter than 2008 when I paced myself at about a book a week. But last year I had a couple of BIG ones on the list, 2666 and Shadow County, both weighing in at over 900 pages. So, I’ll use that excuse. One book I tackled, David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, didn’t make the list, not from lack of effort. It is massive and dense and, by all accounts, brilliant. But I couldn’t wade through it, giving up after a couple hundred pages. But it sits on the shelf, as if knowing I will come back for another pass.

It was good to read Joyce again. I read Portrait while traveling in Nepal. It was, I think, the third time and is remains a contender for my favorite book (of fiction). Favorite living authors, Jim Harrison and Paul Thoreux both had postings on my list last year. If asked, I would say that This is Water was my favorite read of 2009, though I don’t consider it a book, but an essay. The DFW industry is alive and well, not, sadly, the man himself. It was industry that turned a brilliant short talk into a “book.” 2666 was probably the most rewarding artistic read of last year, not counting Joyce, of course. The biggest suprise was The Convalescent by local Maine writer, Jessica Anthony. It is brilliant.

Much of what I read last year can be found at MostyFiction dot com, the web site for book reviews, including a few of mine. It’s a good gig. I get my books for free and get to write about them. It does, I admit though, sometimes feel like work. But that is whining, isn’t it?

And 2010? I’m off to slow start. I’m not sure why, exactly. There are a lot of distractions, it seems, starting out. But, maybe I’m just catching my breath, setting a pace. There are some writers I want to get to this year, and they are all dead. Last year was all fiction. I love fiction, good literature, a story well told, big thick books, bubbling stories. But this year calls for some philosophy (Camus, in particular). Yes, philosophy. I’m 54, what can I say? Stay tuned.

, , ,

And the Winner Is…

In Books, Writers, Writing on January 16, 2013 at 6:00 am
Nobel Prize Medal

Nobel Prize Medal

Nothing underscores the paucity of being monolingual like walking into a bookstore in a foreign country.  “To have another language is to possess a second soul,” proclaimed Goethe. In this instance, I was in France and the bookstore had a small table stacked with English titles. I walked out with Blindness by José Saramago. I was not familiar with the title, nor did I know anything of Saramago–except this: he was a Nobel laureate in Literature. I only knew this because the book sported a marketing emblem declaring it so. If you were to ask me the five best books I’ve ever read, Blindness would be on the list. I’m not sure what the other four would be. The point being, not every book written by a Nobel winner is going to be good, let alone great. But if good literature is your thing, you’ve probably stacked the odds in your favor by selecting one of these authors.

With that in mind, I thought you might be interested the “alumni association” of Nobel winners in literature. Be aware, the list is not without controversy. For instance, three of the greatest writers of the twentieth century didn’t get the nod from Stockholm: Joyce, Proust, and Nabokov.

Here is the list of the more fortunate:

2012 ~ Mo Ya

2006 ~ Orhan Pamuk
2002 ~ Imre Kertész
2000 ~ Gao Xingjian
1999 ~ Günter Grass
1997 ~ Dario Fo
1995 ~ Seamus Heaney
1994 ~ Kenzaburo Oe
1993 ~ Toni Morrison
1992 ~ Derek Walcott
1990 ~ Octavio Paz
1986 ~ Wole Soyinka
1985 ~ Claude Simon
1981 ~ Elias Canetti
1976 ~ Saul Bellow
1973 ~ Patrick White
1971 ~ Pablo Neruda
1961 ~ Ivo Andric
1957 ~ Albert Camus
1946 ~ Hermann Hesse
1943 ~ No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.
1942 ~ No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.
1941 ~ No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.
1940 ~ No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.
1938 ~ Pearl Buck
1935 ~ No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.
1929 ~ Thomas Mann
1928 ~ Sigrid Undset
1927 ~ Henri Bergson
1918 ~ No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.
1914 ~ No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.
If you think great literature will earn you place in the pantheon of the immortals, think again. How many of these names are already lost to history?

, , , , ,

Reading list: 2012

In Books, Creativity, Memoir, Reading, The Examined Life, Writing on December 31, 2012 at 6:46 am
Not my book shelf.

Not my book shelf.

Okay, there is tradition. Who I am to swim against the current? Three years of reading lists. Let the tradition continue.

In the year 2012 I read the following: …but before I go there…my reading has slowed. Here are the stats: In 2009 I read 33 books. I was doing a lot of reviewing at the time and books were free. What would you expect? In 2010 I read 27 books. In 2011, 26. And last/this year, 2012, 20. Obviously a trend is at work here. I don’t like the look of diminishing returns and hope to rectify things going forward.

I expressed dismay over this trend to a friend recently, fewer books read every year and so on. Her respond was, “Perhaps you’re doing other things.” This is certainly true. This year has been consumed with a lot of “other things.” Perhaps that warrants further comment. Perhaps not.

Anyway, here are the twenty books I read in 2012. (Perhaps you, like me, walk into a friend’s house and move first to the bookshelf, if there is one. If there is no bookshelf it’s probably gonna be an early evening–drink deep. But a bookshelf is like peeling back the skull to the frontal lobes and seeing what a person is made of.)

So, again, here is what I was made of in 2012, first to last:

Something Urgent I Have to Say to You, , by Leibowitz, Herbert–biography of William Carlos Williams, the great American poet. Lots of potatoes, little meat.

Lines on the Water: A Fly Fisherman’s Life on the Miramichi, by David Richards Adams –beautiful account of life standing in moving water.

The Anthologist, by Nicholson Baker–A heartbreaking perfect book.

Examined Lives, from Socrates to Nietzsche, by James Miller–The examined life? What can I say? A life mission.

The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes–Barnes is a favorite. To my ear, so British, so proper. So much talent.

Incidents, by Roland Barthes–Observations by a master thinker.

End of the Earth, Voyaging to Antartica, by Peter Mettheissen–Perhaps my favorite living American author–after Jim Harrison, of course. Life rendered in adventure by a writer of the first order.

Why Read Moby Dick, by Nathaniel Philbrick–A good primer to a classic.

Thinking the Twentieth Century: Intellectuals and Politics in the Twentieth Century, by Tony Judt–A tough way to go, a slog, but we own the great late Judt the effort.

At Home in the World, a Memoir, by Joyce Maynard–The voice of an angel. It’s hard to blame Salinger, though one must. (See my post from May here.)

Magic Hours: Essays on Creators and Creation, by Tim Bissell–An essayist to warrant jealousy.

Reading for My Life: Writings 1958-2008, by John Leonard–I grew pubic hair reading and listening to Leonard. So sad to see him gone. So grateful for his direction. It made a difference.

Canada, Richard Ford–Over-rated. I wanted to like it more, wanted to love it. But, alas, like so much we wish to love, it was effort ill spent.

Battleborn, by Watkins, Claire Vaye–Best reading of the year. A new, exciting, heavy, and worthy voice. Frankly amazing to me.

What the Robin Knows: How Birds Reveal the Secrets of the Natural World, by Jon, Young–wonderful introduction to being one with nature.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard–I read this first a few years ago while traveling in India. It was lost on me–too much distraction for such a quiet book. Now it seems the perfect study in observation rendered by an artist.

Canoe Indians of Down East Maine, by William A. Haviland–A homebound study. (They came to the coast from the woods in winter and lived off clams, in case you’ve wondered.)

Buddhism Is Not What You Think: Finding Freedom Beyond Beliefs, by Steve Hagan–“Not What You Think” is the key to this study. That is, if you can think of it, you’ve missed the point. Perfect zen, of course.

Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis, by Timothy Egan–Egan has won the National Book Award and Curtis is the wished for life, without the pain, of course.

Stoner, by John Edward, Williams–A perfect novel. No kidding. Perfection in search of a grand(er) scheme.

________________________

Only one book was read electronically, Canada. That is not the reason it fell short; however, it did not help.

I want to apologize for that weird end-of-year summary post of yesterday. That was odd and unexpected. I don’t particularly like the look of that big ugly thing here at the …house…. It is too foreign and boisterious for our little gathering. Regardless, such are the things over which we have no control. There is a lesson in that.

Make it a good year, folks, as best you’re able. But remember a year is nothing but a collection of weeks and days and hours. I don’t want to be a minimalist (or perhaps I can’t help myself), but I think it better to make it a good hour, good minute, a good second even. When you do that the days and years follow naturally.

Best regards, friends.

Doug

, , , , ,

North of “Not Many”

In Adventure, Creativity, Nature, Writers on August 2, 2012 at 6:00 am

Art in a land of giants.

The North Woods. We capitalize the words. Sometimes its the Great North Woods. It’s been reported that Maine’s Great North Woods comprises the largest contiguous undeveloped landmass in the lower forty-eight. I don’t know if that is factually correct, but I hold it true because it comforts me, knowing it’s up there, the vastness of it. Approximately four million acres of pine and moose and bear and lakes and ponds, a few modest mountains, and a lace-work of lumber roads.

A person can get seriously lost in such a place, and frequently I go north and attempt to do precisely that. It was during such an effort last week that I stumbled upon the cache of “drawing pencils” in the photograph above. I was north of the little village of Kokadjo. The welcome sign to Kokadjo states the population as “Not Many.” It is good to have a sense of humor in such a place. Passing through Kokadjo, I left the tarmac and rumbled along a lumber road for untold miles, then turned off onto an unused road. It was pitted and grown-over and I followed it until it began to bog out. I noticed a patch of St. John’s Wart and stopped. I let Lucy out, after attaching a bear-bell to her collar, and began to pick the St. John’s Wart. Harvest the flowers, dry them, crumble them, and you’ve got a winter tea to drive away the doldrums.

I stretched my legs, walking down a path, when I found them, the giant pencils, stacked neatly as you see them in the photograph. I looked around. No cabin. No evidence of life. No recent tire tracks, foot prints, nothing. Yet, here was art.

Joyce said that “The artist, like the God of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails.” I thought of this quote and wondered who this God of creation was. I was struck by the obvious purity of the endeavor, as well as the humor. She–for there was something beautifully feminine about this exhibit–she, this goddess of creation, was beyond the work and the work was purer for that. It is possible to create for the purpose of creation only, not needing the prism of “the other.” It was an exhibit of voided ego precisely executed.

I do not know where I was. I did not check coordinates. That seemed contrary to the experience. It was quite simply my reward for giving myself up to the woods.

, , , , , , ,

“She spent her whole life trying to understand…”

In Books, Life, Literature, Photography, Thinkers, Writers, Writing on March 21, 2010 at 9:17 am

My Father

“She spent her whole life trying to understand...” caught my eye. It was a blurb in a New York Time’s obituary. The woman, recently deceased, spent her whole life trying, according to the obit, to understand the problem of poverty. An admirable pursuit, certainly. But what got me was the concept of devotion to an idea as a life-long pursuit. My mother once, many years ago, commented that I like ideas more than I like people. I don’t think it was a compliment. I’m not sure, either, if it is true–but I’m not saying it isn’t. Regardless, the notion of pursuing an idea, a life quest, has always been compelling. Trouble is, I don’t have a nagging singular curiosity. My curiosity is more broad-brush. Or is it?

I’ve been thinking, in this vein, about similarities, if any, between my photography, my reading, my writing and my thinking. Years ago, as an undergrad, I took a class in Joyce. We read Ulysses. Aside from all that suggests–the long sentences, the syntax, the difficulty, the beauty, the song, the brilliance–what I came away with was the understanding that the minutiae of life, observed and rendered by the artist, can be profound. Through the years this notion has only deepened; principally by my reading, Montaigne through Didion, and my study of photography, Cartier-Bresson through Friedlander, and its practice. I think that is why I am drawn to the streets as a photographer. (Or in the case of the image above, the pub. My father at the table, me in the mirror–a brief life moment, profound only in that sense. Or as the Zen Master might say, The world in a single atom.) These moments add up and together they suggest something more. That is why I practice the type of photography I do: I can’t afford to let anything slip by. It is ineffable, if practiced properly.

Which brings me back to the header, She spent her whole life…

I have not spent my life doing one particular thing with concentrated focus. But now, at this place, I see that I have been adding pearls to a strand, as it where. Together, perhaps they will make something beautiful, but that is a high-calling and I’m not sure my ears can pick up that frequency. Instead, I simply desire to stay aware of collecting them, the pearls. That would be good. What would be even better, what would be great, would be to stop collecting and simply stay aware.