by Richard Subber | Jun 29, 2023 | Book reviews, Books, Joys of reading
provocative but obscure
Book review:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:
An Inquiry into Values
by Robert M. Pirsig
New York: William Morrow & Company, Ltd., 1974, 1999
418 pages
This is one of the books that I’ve thought about reading for most of my life.
I gave it my best shot.
It’s not so much that I don’t want to read Pirsig’s story—I think it’s more a case of this is one of his stories that I don’t need to dive into real deep.
I feel like a hungry guy who has just opened a lunchbox that was packed by three different moms, with three different ideas of what I might want to chow down on.
Obviously, Zen is about philosophy and meaning and reality and understanding and stuff.
Pirsig hasn’t written, exactly, a stream of consciousness kind of book, but its choppy organization leads me to lean in that direction, and I’m not up for it.
The non-motorcycle stuff is provocative, but it’s obscure.
The motorcycle stuff is overall a revelation, but I didn’t need to know it.
You read it and make your own decision.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: Mila 18
horrific truth by Leon Uris
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In other words: Poems for your eyes and ears with 64 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Jun 27, 2023 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature, Joys of reading, Language
…death is an anticlimax…
Book review:
Les Liaisons Dangereuses
by Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos de Laclos
Originally published 1782
Translated as Dangerous Liaisons by Ernest Dowson, New York: Doubleday, 1998
Illustrations by Sylvain Sauvage
Les Liaisons Dangereuses is not a garden of delight.
This is a book about love, but the reader will find precious little of it in these pages.
An acquaintance dismissed this voluptuous tale, thus: “All they do is talk.”
Let’s begin there. The language is rich. I daresay that Laclos turns language into an erogenous zone in Les Liaisons Dangereuses.
If you aspire to a working understanding of good and evil, you could do worse than listen to the riveting chatter of the leading personae, who choose each word with careful, deliciously ribald, austerely cruel, and domineering intent. You really don’t want to be a friend, and you most assuredly don’t want to be an enemy.
Men, en garde! The Marquise de Merteuil impulsively thinks of cojones as table ornaments.
Ladies, away! The Vicomte de Valmont is a pirate lover, he sees women as prize ships ready for boarding.
One might wish to believe that the others are innocents: Cécile Volanges, Danceny, the Présidente de Tourvel. But, hold. Each of them seeks to play the game of love, but they are hardly able to distinguish winning from losing.
Yes, this is a boundless exposé of the worst elements—of human intrigue, self indulgence, hubris, vaunting egos, and careless poaching of souls—that masquerade as amour.
Yes, in a sense, the characters are stereotypes, but each is, remarkably, ingeniously, ingenuously, a masterpiece of the type. Laclos uses every pertinent word to make them real.
Yes, Les Liaisons is an ultimately degraded experience for both the characters and readers…ultimately, the reader must condemn the Marquise and the Vicomte for so many lives destroyed…death is an anticlimax in Liaisons Dangereuses.
The Marquise and the Vicomte are burdened with a moral framework that shuns the absolute—they have unimaginably unsatisfied desires, and no intellectual elaboration of right and wrong.
Yet, a gentle reader may offer these two a bare shred of pity.
The Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont swirl through their lives, casually jousting with each other as they amuse themselves in controlling the fates of other men and women, but remaining unaware that they are not in control of their own fates.
Note for bibliophiles: Whether you read this in the original French, or in the lush translation by Ernest Dowson, accept the pain of experiencing a literary style that is no longer in vogue, prepare yourself for Laclos’ fabulous late 18th century style that discards a simple declarative sentence, readily, with apparent joy, whenever a sentence heavily laden with clauses, phrases, and modifiers will do just as well, heedless of the effect on a reader, whose inclination may be to appreciate the writhing drama of this story, with somewhat fewer words.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Snow Goose
…sensual drama, eminently poetic…
by Paul Gallico
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My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 53 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Jun 25, 2023 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History, Politics, Power and inequality, World history
domestic politics always gets in the way…
Book review:
The Ghost at the Feast:
America and the Collapse of World Order,
1900-1941
by Robert Kagan
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2023
669 pages
Kagan’s approach to writing history is fully respectable. He tells it straight, and he knows what he’s talking about.
The Ghost at the Feast is a stunning commentary on the politics (domestic and international) that guided and muddled America’s role on the world stage in the first half of the 20th century.
Prepare to learn more about our history that you don’t already know.
We didn’t always know exactly what we were doing.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
The Reader (Der Vorleser)
Not just a rehash of WWII…
by Bernhard Schlink
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Writing Rainbows: Poems for Grown-Ups with 59 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Jun 22, 2023 | Human Nature, Tidbits
…not the blue frock, either…
“You can’t dance in a long dress.”
Anna Mae Bullock (Tina Turner) (1939-2023)
The simple truths may not be the true-est, but they are the most remember-ful.
I’m a Tina Turner fan, and after reading this terpsichorean quote I understand even better exactly why I’m a Tina Turner fan.
Tina was the exotic essence of vitality, with a decent dose of sexuality and a potent dollop of magnificent obsession.
When Tina in her prime was performing, she was All.
All in, all out, all Tina, all right, all zippity, all extra well done, all flash dance without the welding helmet.
I think Tina had no intention to titillate when she said “You can’t dance in a long dress.”
I think she purely meant to make it real clear that you have to be able to kick when you’re proving to yourself that you’re alive. Alive! Dance like no one is watching you!
Tina is my favorite kicker.
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
A Farewell to Arms (book review)
classic Ernest Hemingway
with relentlessly realistic dialogue…
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Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 73 free verse poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Jun 20, 2023 | My poetry, Poetry, Reviews of other poets, Tidbits
he stares at me, no fear…
Busy
The chippie halts on the second step.
I’ve seen him there, he will not stay,
his hole is close, he will not stray,
he skips across my little yard
but not too far.
I want to ask him, just this once,
if he’d like to scout a cozy place
he’s never seen,
he stares at me, no fear,
I’d like a little chat, I think,
I’d like to hear his thoughts,
but I can see
he has no time to talk.
October 23, 2019
Inspired by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s “Following Mr. Berry’s Instructions,”
published October 23, 2019, on her website, A Hundred Falling Veils
“You have to be able to imagine lives that aren’t yours.”
Wendell Berry
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
84, Charing Cross Road (book review)
Helene Hanff, on reading good books…
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Seeing far: Selected poems with 47 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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