Check out this bit of loveliness:
It can be yours for a mere $420.00 (plus $6.00 Shipping). There is at least one other limited edition of this novel at an equally outrageous price. I hope Carlos RZ is getting a slice if that pie.
Day 1 (DDRD 2,366) April 23, 2024
Read to page 65. Off to a good start, reviving my interest in The Story.
I think that a lot if the time good writing comes down to word choice. For instance, "A skyline stabbed by hundreds of chimneys...." (3) That "stabbed" is just a beautiful thing. Without it, the phrase is mundane and passes by unnoticed.
And then there's this: "[He] subscribed to the theory that the liberal use of adverbs and adjectives was the mark of a pervert or someone with a vitamin deficiency." (4)
There's a reference to a Spanish writer, Benito Pérez Galdós, of whom I'd not previously heard, so I went to our good friends at Wikipedia for some informationand got this: "Benito Pérez Galdós (10 May 1843 – 4 January 1920) was a Spanish realist novelist. He was a leading literary figure in 19th-century Spain, and some scholars consider him second only to Miguel de Cervantes in stature as a Spanish novelist."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_P%C3%A9rez_Gald%C3%B3s
¡Caray!
So I went over to the LFPL to see what I could see. There were 7 items listed. 2 were books about Galdós' writing. 1 was an anthology of Plays by Spanish writers. 1 was a novel in Spanish. Of the other three, all novels, two were book books--one in Remote Shelving (of course) and the other buried in an International Collection--and one, Dona Perfecta, was an e-book. I went for the latter because of the blurb which read, in part, "one of the towering masterpieces of nineteenth-century...."
So there's another path to follow through the literary forest.
And then there's this:
Day 2 (DDRD 2,367) April 24, 2024
Read to page 165. Yep, I spent some serious time on the couch reading. Pretty absorbing book. Might read some more later, but for now, duty calls, I cannot linger....
Day 3 (DDRD 2,368) April 25, 2024
Read to page
Next time I hear someone say that Black people are just naturally better athletes, before I tell them that they're being racist, I'm going to recite this:
"Natural talent is like an athlete's strength. You can be born with more or less ability, but nobody can become an athlete just because he or she was born tall, or strong, or fast. What makes the athlete, or the artist, os the work, the vocation, and the technique." (182)
And how about this:
"It is impossible to survive in a prolonged state of reality, at least for a human being. We spend a good part of our lives dreaming, especiallywhen we'reawake." (202 - 203)
"The incompetent always present themselves as experts, the cruel as pious, sinners as devout, usurers as benefactors, the small-minded as patriots, the arrogant as humble, the vulgar as elegant, and the feeble-minded as intellectual." (203)
First thought after reading 50 pages today: "How on 🌎 could I have already read 50 pages?????"
