Literary Life: A Second Memoir…book review

Literary Life: A Second Memoir…book review

…a “man of letters”…

 

Book review:

Literary Life: A Second Memoir

 

by Larry McMurtry (1936-2021)  

Simon & Schuster, 2009

 

McMurtry moves me to want more, read more…

It’s incredibly easy to read McMurtry—I’ve read Books: A MemoirWalter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen, and now Literary Life.  Time after time, it seems that he writes in an off-hand way; thoughts and scenes and chapters can end very abruptly. Yet, the work seems polished.  The prose is spare, as Larry acknowledges.

I am titillated by his familiar references to so many authors and works. I would love to be a “man of letters,” as McMurtry claims to be. The draw for me is McMurtry’s immersion in books. I would be thrilled to own 200,000 books. Desperately thrilled.

I’m pretty sure that McMurtry’s passionate engagement with books and authors is a believable lifestyle. His many references to re-reading books is a believable commitment.

Since I retired nearly 20 years ago, I have, from time to time, envisioned taking the pledge to read the entire oeuvre of an author I like. Now I am moved to read McMurtry’s books. I plan to re-read Books and Literary Life to get clues about how to read them. I’ll consider reading his works in order by pub date, except for the Lonesome Dove and Berrybender tetralogies, of course.

I don’t think I’ll be disappointed.

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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.

 

Will the last monkey cry?

the new reality…

click here

 

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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“…my final future…”…   “now then…” my poem

“…my final future…”…   “now then…” my poem

I realize new truths…

 

 

now then…

 

The unknowable future

   has been around for a long time,

it is,

it will be,

the mystery is what, not if.

 

I realize new truths.

I’m closer to my future

   than I used to be,

I’m closer to my final future.

I think more about tomorrow,

I think more about today.

 

Sweet futures can become sweet nows,

the nows I can know.

I can choose my next now,

I do not know tomorrow’s future,

I will live it in good time.

 

May 11, 2024

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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.

 

“Tear it up,” says Kurt Vonnegut

“Write a six line poem, about anything…

click here

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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“We almost always know…”

“We almost always know…”

don’t pretend this isn’t true…

 

 

“We almost always know what the right thing is.”

 

from The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2016

p. 156

don’t try to forget this

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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.

 

Book review: Saint Joan

by George Bernard Shaw

click here

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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“faintest breaths…”…“another thing,” my poem

“faintest breaths…”…“another thing,” my poem

what’s it all about?

 

 

another thing

 

j’ever notice

that they never look up

to look at the phone?

 

head tilted down,

the obvious sign,

body still,

thumbs awhirl,

faintest breaths…

 

how often have you seen

  someone pumping a fist

    and shouting “yeah!”

      after scrolling down

        one more time?

 

Try talking to that guy

  in the waiting room

    who hasn’t looked up

      from his phone

        since he sat down…

 

think about being him…

it won’t take long.

 

May 9, 2024

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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.

 

1491 by Charles Mann (book review)

…lost American legacies

click here

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”

 

Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.

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“a dancing wight”…“Another time,” my poem

“a dancing wight”…“Another time,” my poem

a chime in the dark

 

 

Another time

 

That single chime,

sometime in night,

there is no rhyme,

try as I might

   I cannot conjure

      a dancing wight

         who sings that tune,

no song sublime,

no twist of rune

   that I can write.

 

I let the chime expire,

I savor it entire,

perhaps Great Pan

   may favor it

      to puff his pipes,

and thrill the mime

   in pagan rite,

in distant time.

 

May 8, 2024

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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.

 

Book review: An Empire Divided

King George and his ministers

wanted the Caribbean sugar islands

more than they wanted the 13 colonies…

by Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy

click here

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”

 

Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.

*   *   *   *   *   *

The Eye of the Story…book review

The Eye of the Story…book review

“Each work is new.”

 

 

Book review:

The Eye of the Story: Selected Essays and Reviews

 

by Eudora Alice Welty (1909-2001)

American short story writer and novelist, Pulitzer Prize winner

New York: Random House, 1977

355 pages

 

The Eye of the Story is lush, literate, filled with almost languid richness.

I can only imagine being so well read that I could recognize all of her references to other writers and the vast literature of novels and short stories. I envy the breadth of her engagement with the world of fiction.

I’m more interested in what she has to say about writing.

“We who encounter words used in certain ways are persuaded by them to be brought mind and heart within the presence, the power, of the imagination” (p. 134).

“Each work is new” (p. 135). Welty is talking about novels, but this also is true, so true, of poetry. She observes that, in the fiction of her contemplation, “words have been found for which there may be no other words” (p. 137).

“The imagination has to be involved, and more—ignited. How much brighter than the symbol can be the explicit observation that springs firsthand from deep and present feeling…” (p. 139).

“It is through the shaping of the work in the hands of the artist that you most nearly come to know what can be known, on the page, of his mind and heart, and his as apart from the others. No other saw life in an ordering exactly like this” (p. 144).

I find affirmation in The Eye of the Story. Welty declares that writing is an art that uses the literally infinite array of words in sequence to create a spectacular, unique exhibition of what’s in the writer’s mind and in her heart.

“Each work is new.” I believe that each poem is unique. Each engaged reader takes a new step on new ground each time he reads the poem.

The poet opens a new window in her mind each time she takes the quill in hand.

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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.

 

A poem about the right thing

…and the lesser incarnation…

“Vanity”

click here

 

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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